Eyes to See
by Tamane Deverel
Summary: Trouble is brewing again in Sunnydale as a demon of lies begins to attack students from the drama club.
1. So It Begins

_Note1: Please don't be too harsh on me, this is my first fanfic to be posted._

_Note2: This is set as an alternate beginning to season 2._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy The Vampire Slayer. That belongs to Joss Whedon. The only things I own are characters that aren't in the show, and I'm not making money off of them either._

_Note3: And also; Reviews would be very much appreciated. You know the reviews=motivations chestnut by now, I'd guess. It isn't an uncommon thing for authors to say, after all. I would request no flames, although realistically, what am I going to do to stop you?_

_Enormous thanks goes to fellow author Beast of Burton, for A) being a wonderful writer, editor, and human being, and B) for encouraging me to write my own story, instead of just appreciating others'._

"Buffy, are you sure you're okay?" Willow asked, voice filled with concern as they navigated the cafeteria, trying to make their way to the food bar through the crowds of hungry high-school students.

"Yeah, Buff, you've been acting kind of weird since you got back." Xander added, agreeing with Willow as he squeezed between two particularly large seniors. They both gave the underclass clown a disdainful look before returning to their conversation.

"I'm fine, guys." Buffy replied, allowing a trace of exasperation to enter her tone. "Just like the last fifteen times you've asked." She muttered, turning back to face in front of her.

Buffy turned just a fraction too late, and barely managed to dodge a young man who had tripped over someone in the crowds' foot. She sidestepped him, but Willow wasn't so lucky. The teen barreled into her, knocking them both to the ground in a flurry of orange paper.

As the papers settled, Buffy got a better look at the boy. He was slender, with smooth black hair and deep green eyes. His face was thin and clean-shaven, giving him a slightly studious look. He was wearing a simple white shirt, with a dark blue windbreaker, simple blue jeans, and white sneakers. It was hard to judge his height, since he was sitting on the ground, but she judged him to be somewhere in the latter half of five feet.

The boy simply sat on the floor, supported by his hands behind him, legs akimbo in front of him, gazing at Willow bashfully as the orange pages fluttered to the ground around him. Then Willow looked up at him, and he started.

"Um, h-hey Willow." The boy stammered out, eyes nervously scanning the room. And was that a faint blush Buffy could detect on his face…?

The boy perked up as he grabbed for one of the orange pieces of paper. "Want a flyer?" He asked hopefully.

Willow gave her usual soft smile, with a trace of recognition. "Oh, um, hi James!" She greeted awkwardly. "Sure; what's it for?" She inquired.

"Well," James began, getting to his feet. "The drama department was really underfunded last year. So," he offered the grounded girl a hand, allowing him to pull her to her feet. His hand stayed on hers for a brief second longer than necessary, before he pulled it back with another small blush. "Uh, um, so a bunch of us from the department decided to do a fund raiser early in the year, so we can get props and such for the show this time." He handed her one of the papers, which she took. "Since it's next week, we aren't going to be doing a full show; just a bunch of us doing dramatic readings." He explained as he bent over to begin picking up loose flyers.

"Oh, cool!" Willow exclaimed. Behind her, Buffy cast a skeptical look at Xander, who rolled his eyes affectionately.

"Well, I've gotta go; need to finish passing these out." James raised the flyers he had gathered in his right hand. He turned to leave, and finally caught sight of Xander as he did so. "Oh, hey Xander!" He greeted brightly, and waved.

"Hey James." Xander waved back as the actor left.

Buffy looked questioningly at both of her friends. "So, how do you know that guy?" She inquired as they began moving again.

"James? Well, he used to eat lunch with us in middle school, around when Wills still hung with Amy. The five of us-us, James, Jesse and Amy-would eat lunch together most days." Xander informed Buffy.

"But, it was more of a 'us losers have to stick together' and less of a 'we're all friends here' type of thing." Willow added.

"Yeah. There's safety in numbers, you know. Especially when you're dealing with someone like Cordelia." Xander half-joked as they finally reached the food bar. "Until we got to high school, and he joined the drama department. Then, well…hey!" He cut himself off. "Watch this." He pointed back into the cafeteria. "He's a nice guy, but he doesn't pull his punches when it comes to bullies." Xander nodded back to where he had pointed. Buffy followed his indication to see Cordelia and the Cordettes approaching the actor as someone refused one of James' flyers.

"Oh, hey, McAnon." Cordelia greeted, her voice dripping with a mixture of false sweetness and condescension. The object of ire eyed her warily. "You know," she continued, brightening, her voice filled with fake helpfulness. "Some people might actually go to one of these things if you weren't in it." She laughed, prompting her herd of minions to follow suit.

"So far, typical treatment." Buffy murmured to Xander as the two looked on.

Buffy was startled when James called back to his tormentor as she sauntered away. "Hey, Cordelia!" The self-appointed Queen of Sunnydale High half-turned in curiosity. "I think you made a mistake on your make-up!" He continued.

"Shows how much you know!" Cordelia shot back condescendingly. "I never make a mistake with my make-up!"

"Oh, I see." James nodded his head in exaggerated understanding, voice suspiciously friendly. "So you meant to look like a whore." He finished, a smile on his face.

Buffy stared in surprise as she heard Xander chuckle next to her. Buffy shook her head at James' audacity and said, "I didn't think anybody could get away with treating the Queen C like that."

Willow shook her head. "Oh, no, he'll probably pay for that later. I've heard Cordelia has a few of the football players she knows go beat him up every time he does something like that."

Buffy sighed as she paid for her food and ventured back into the crowds to find a table. "High school sure is a wild place." She commented.

"Yeah." Xander agreed. "Where else are you going to find a living dummy?" He mused.

"Or a praying-mantis teacher?" Buffy asked teasingly, looking pointedly at Xander.

"Or a body-swapping witch?" Willow offered.

"Or…" there was a collective pause as all three tried to think of the worst thing they'd encountered so far.

"…Snyder." Three voices spoke in sync.

"Um, hey, miss; do you want a flyer? It's for a drama department fundraiser." A handsome guy with short blond hair broke into their conversation to ask Buffy.

"Sorry." The Slayer told him apologetically. "A little late. We already got one." She gestured to the flyer still in Willow's hand.

The blond grimaced, nodded in understanding, and turned to go.

"Hey; nice shirt!" Xander called after him. The boy turned around and called back, "Thanks!" He turned long enough for Buffy to get a look at the shirt; it was a black shirt with white dots made to look like stars all over it, with a symbol on front that even Buffy knew stood for the superhero the Green Lantern.

As the trio finally broke out of the torrent of hungry students and reached a chair, Buffy caught Willow maneuvering to make sure her chair was just a little bit closer to Xander than it was to Buffy. The Slayer internally sighed at the redhead's behavior; she wished Willow would get over her Xander-crush already. All she was doing was hurting herself. Unfortunately, most guys didn't seem to be interested in someone like Willow. Buffy tried to think of a single guy that had shown any sort of attraction to the shy girl.

The fact that Willow didn't talk to a lot of guys didn't help matters at all. Buffy couldn't remember the shy computer expert talking to many guys at all in the time she'd known her, even less that were in her age group. 'Obviously there's Xander, and…and…' Buffy refused to come up blank on this. 'Wait! That James guy! He was stuttering and blushing when he was talking to Willow, and he certainly seemed much more confident against Cordy. It certainly seems like he's got a thing for Willow.' In an attempt to convince her friend to help herself, Buffy decided to voice this thought.

"Hey, you know, Will, I think that James kid might be interested in you." She advised her friend.

"Um, what?" Willow asked, surprised as much by the suddenness of the statement as by the content. "I don't think so. I mean, why would he be interested in me? He's handsome, and he's an actor, and girls like actors, don't they? And we haven't even talked in at least a year, and-" It was a textbook Willow-babble. Buffy decided to cut this one off for her.

"Woah there, girl." Buffy held up a hand, stopping her. "I saw him when he was talking to you; there was definitely some Willow-interest going on." She continued firmly. "Maybe you should talk to him, Will. You know, get to know the guy some more." Buffy advised.

"A-are you telling me to go on a date with him?" Willow asked in shy disbelief.

"Not exactly where I was going, but why not?" Buffy asked. She turned to the strangely silent Xander. "What do you think?" She asked.

He gave her an incredulous look. "Um, you do know this is me, _Xander_, you're asking about Wills' _love life._" He pointed out. "Why?"

Buffy nodded. "Good point. After school, he's going to be with the drama groups' fund-raiser thing, which they should be practicing for in the auditorium." She said. "Maybe you can talk to him after that. I mean, they shouldn't take much longer than my training with Giles, right?" She pointed out.

"Um, well, I guess…" Buffy could see that Willow wasn't completely sold on the idea. Buffy would have to try to convince her when Xander wasn't around, so they could use total candor.

Conveniently enough for her, that was the moment Xander chose to stand up. "Uh, I gotta use the bathroom. Be right back." He told them, and made for the restrooms.

"Nice timing, Xand." Buffy muttered appreciatively under her breath. She turned to Willow. "Look, Wills, you can't keep pining after Xander for the rest of your life. Maybe James is the key to helping you get over him."

"Oh, um, well, I don't know about that. I don't think anyone could replace Xander…" Willow trailed off with a dreamy sigh.

"Okay then." Buffy shook her head. This was going nowhere. Maybe she could try a different angle. "Hey, maybe if you go with this guy, then Xander might finally notice you as a girl. I mean, guy doesn't notice girl until she's with another guy, then he notices her and realizes how he's been in love with her the entire time. It's a classic, right?" Buffy suggested.

Willow perked up, sunny smile showing. "You really think so?!" But then a shadow passed over her face. "But that's mean. I mean, it's kind of manipulative, Buffy." Willow said, frowning deeply.

Buffy sighed. "Yeah, I guess it is. But which is more important; James, or Xander?" She asked, trying for one last push.

Willow nodded somewhat reluctantly. "Yeah…you have a point…I just wish there was a way I could get Xander to notice without tricking some poor guy." The soft-hearted red-head lamented softly.

"I do too." Buffy assured her. "But a girls' gottta do what a girls' gotta do."

"So; what'd I miss?" Xander plopped down next to Willow again as he returned, causing the girl to blush slightly at an accidental knee-bump.

"Well, we just decided that Willow should try and see where a date with James goes." Buffy announced matter-of-factly.

Xander grinned at his oldest friend. "Getting back into the dating game, eh Wills? Way to go!" He threw his arm around her shoulder in a sibling-esque congratulatory gesture. Willow shot Buffy a concerned look. Buffy responded by mouthing 'give it time.'

"'Back'?" Willow asked disbelievingly. "The last guy I 'dated' was a demon living on the internet!"

"So, that just means it's all uphill from here!" Xander told her, showing the bright, class-clown smile that made Willow get tingly all over.

A bell rung through their conversation, indicating the end of lunch. "Well; back to the salt mines." Willow commented with a sigh as they all stood up and began making their way to class.

Willow was nervous as she peered into the school's auditorium to find the drama crew leaving. It hadn't been that difficult to puzzle out where the practice for the fundraiser was being held; where else? It wasn't like the auditorium was being used for anything else most times of the year. The only exception was the annual talent show, which even most of these admitted attention hogs disdained to participate in.

The school day had been remarkably unremarkable. It actually made Willow even more nervous. Usually, if something was going to happen-which it almost always did on milestone days, like the first day of school-there would have been a sign of it already. The fact that it hadn't happened yet meant that either it wasn't going to happen-really a laughable idea on top of a Hellmouth-or that it was going to be spectacular, more than just the normal vampires and demons running around Sunnydale they'd all come to know as the usual. Which was much more likely. And considering that it hadn't happened yet, Willow was beginning to feel ever so slightly paranoid.

Taking a deep breath, she screwed up her courage, and finally entered the auditorium. She was guided by two desires-one, the idea that at least becoming more friendly with James would finally get Xander to notice her, (she really hoped she didn't actually have to go out with James for that, because no matter how Buffy put it, manipulating him that way still felt wrong) and two, an honest desire to reconnect with James. They'd never been terribly close, but if you weren't trying to bully him, he was a nice enough guy.

She moved to the right, letting actors file past with props and pages of lines. The costumes were fun to look at, especially since it appeared most of them were doing Shakespearean readings; this was made even more obvious by the tall, brown-haired actor who held a plaster skull under his arm. The odds were good that he had been practicing the famous "Yorik" monologue from Hamlet.

As the last of the actors filed past, she strode down the center aisle and toward the stage, where she could see the figure of James still packing up. He was so involved that she actually managed to come up to the edge of the stage before he noticed her.

"Oh! Um, h-h-hi, Willow." His stuttering _could_ have been chalked up to her surprising him, theoretically at least. But the little blush he gave, combined with the fact that Buffy had suggested as much made it at least apparent even to her less-than-socially-knowledgeable eyes.

James recovered quickly. "If you're here for the fundraiser, you're a little early. As in, almost a full week early." He told her with a friendly smirk.

Willow smiled back at him, full of life. "I actually knew that. Thanks though!" She told him, a little awkwardly, but endearingly.

"Alright then. So, what did you want to talk about?" He said, brushing apart the curtains to make his way backstage. "Follow me; I'm in charge of shutting everything down. It's a pretty easy job, so we can talk while I do it." He told her. She nodded and followed after him.

"Well, um, I'm not sure how to say this…" Willow began, suddenly nervous. It just wasn't like her to be bold enough to ask someone out, even if she did know the person liked her. "I just wanted to say-um, ask, if you'd want to-I m-mean, be willing to, ah," she stammered, blush rising as she tried to find the best way to phrase her request. "I mean-" She was cut off as much by his tone of voice as by the hand he raised.

"Hold on." He interrupted. "What is that smell?" He wondered. It was kind of familiar-he'd definitely smelled it before, more than once. But then, it had been a faint smell. Here, it was an overpowering stench.

Willow, on the other hand, felt her earlier paranoia was coming to fruition. She, after all, was very familiar with that scent. Especially after, last year, she had come across an entire room full of recently slaughtered dead corpses, and the killer had not been inclined to clean up after himself.

It was unmistakably the scent of blood.

James spotted a small, dark red splash on the floor near his foot. He leaned down to investigate, rubbing his hand on it. It was wet, and very clearly blood. "Wonder who cut themselves?" He mused aloud. Inside him, however, there was a part of him that was shouting at him, telling him that the smell was too strong for that drop to be all of it.

Seeing what James was investigating and coming to the same conclusion as his warning voice, Wilow started expanding her search for more blood. She had no desire whatsoever to find another slaughter, but she knew that it was important for her to find out where it had happened, at least.

It also occurred to her that her life had become very screwed up in the past year, if now she was _looking_ for dead bodies.

"Um, James. There's some more." She motioned to their right. There was a small streak of blood, more of a line than the puddle James had found. Almost, she mused, as if the thing that was bleeding had been traveling.

_Well,_ she thought, _that means it's probably not vampires. _ Not that the thought was much of a comfort; it just meant that the odds of the culprit being something new and terrifying was much higher.

James had looked to where she was pointing, and was walking toward the smear. And past it, she noted with some confusion. Or at least it was confusion until she saw him kneel down at another point, continuing in the same direction as the smear she'd pointed out.

He had found the next part of the trail, she realized.

Walking up to James, she vocalized her realization. "There's a trail of blood leading over there." She pointed in the direction the blood appeared to be leading.

James nodded as he stood up. "We should follow it." His uneasy expression betrayed the fact that he by no means wanted to. "We might be able to find whoever it is before they bleed too much." He told her.

"Right." Willow agreed, but immediately amended her statement as James started forward. "Um, I mean, I'll go!" She volunteered, her energy masking her dread. She was suddenly wishing she'd asked Buffy to come as some sort of moral support. But who knew something like this would happen?!

Then again, it was the Hellmouth.

"Why shouldn't we go together?" James asked.

_There_ is_ safety in numbers. Even if that number is two._ Willow considered. _But he doesn't know the potential danger! I'm more equipped to handle it._ Technically she was right, but she was also painfully aware of how vulnerable she still was. At least she knew what could happen, though.

Thinking quickly, she tried to make an excuse for James to stay. "What if the injured person is, uh, movin' around, and they come back here, and we both left to find them? How would we know that they made it back?" She drew out the word 'would', a nervous accident.

James looked reluctant, but he nodded. "Okay; just hurry." He told her.

Willow sighed as she turned away, toward the shadows that the trail led into. "At least that's over with." She muttered under her breath. As she made her way toward the shadows, she pulled a small cross from her pocket. So what if the odds said it wasn't a vampire? The odds said a coin flipped twice should come up on each side once, but it could come up twice heads or tails, too.

She followed the blood trail with no problem. It lead her up some stairs and into a booth with switches, lever and dials that she recognized as the stage control booth. The lights, microphones, and any special stage pieces could be manipulated from there. She looked around the booth, and her eyes lit onto a switch that had blood spattered on and around it; it was labeled: **trap**.

Frowning slightly, she pushed the switch.

Down on the stage, James jumped as the trap door in the stages' floor slid open. Normally the door would have been used for scenes where an actor needed to switch with another-such as a scene where an actor's character transformed into another.

Now, however, judging by the fact that the stench of blood was even stronger now than before, it was being used for something else.

James peered in, and what he saw made his stomach rebel. He turned to the side swiftly, but didn't get very far before vomiting onto the stage floor.

Buffy and Giles turned in surprise as the library doors swung open forcefully to admit a panicky Willow and a nauseous James.

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "What happened, Will? You aren't _that_ bad of a kisser, are you?" She asked, before she got a better look at them. "Woah; what's wrong?"

Willow took a gasp of breath before answering in a scared babble. "W-we were in the auditorium, and we it-it was James' job to clean up, so we started to, but then we found some blood, and it was part of a trail, so I followed it, and it lead to a booth, s-s-so I went in and pushed a switch, and then we f-f-f-found a…we found a…" Willow babbled on. Buffy rapidly grew more concerned, even while she was frustrated with her friends' inability to finish the story.

James interrupted, gasping out, "Body. We found a, a dead body. With- without a head."


	2. Encounters and Explanations

_Still don't own Buffy. _

_My thanks to Muffyn1 and NaruHarem4ever for following this story, and to the person who anonymously reviewed._

"Buffy, could you take James home? He's had a most trying night." Giles instructed as he began making his way to the back of the library, towards some of his more comprehensive occult texts.

Buffy nodded, and began leading James gently out the door.

"Poor Terry…"James was muttering. "He was such a nice guy, too…"

"Don't worry, Giles, I'll make sure he gets home okay." Buffy called to her Watcher as she exited the room.

Giles came out of the stacks barely a minute later, carrying three thick books. "Willow, Xander, here." He called for his two young research assistants. "Very good…each take one…" he muttered as they took the top two books off of the stack in his arms. Predictably, Xander took the slimmer of the two books, while Willow took the thickest one of the set. The librarian turned to Willow. "Now, Willow, can you show us exactly where you found the body? We must examine it for markings that may give us any possible clue to what killed the boy."

Willow grimaced at the thought of seeing the corpse again, but nodded gamely none the less. "I can do that." Her resolute expression , however, did nothing to mask the slight tremble of disgust and fear in her voice.

She wasn't the only one; judging by Xander's expression, he wasn't too sanguine about the prospect either.

As Buffy and James exited the school through the front doors, the already setting sun came as an unpleasant surprise.

_Wow,_ she thought. _Is the sun supposed to go down this early, or is it just the special Hell-mouth brand Buffy luck?_

"Come on; we have to hurry. Sunnydale _really _isn't the best place to be at night." Buffy advised her companion, a trace of irony in her tone. He nodded silently, but sped up to a fast walk.

They stayed like that for a full minute, moving quickly and quietly. They stayed like that, that is, until Buffy began to feel uncomfortable with the silence.

"So," she began awkwardly. "You have a crush on Willow, right? Spill."

James looked over at her in surprise. He hadn't expected her to talk to him too much-or really at all-, let alone about… "How did you know?"

"Well, it was kind of obvious when you bumped into Willow this morning. I mean, with the stammering and the blushing, it was a miracle the whole school didn't pick up on it." Buffy responded matter-of-factly.

"Okay, yeah." James admitted sheepishly. "I'm much better at hiding things like that on stage. I wasn't exactly following a script there."

Silence fell for a few seconds, James continuing home and Buffy walking slightly behind as an escort. An escort that didn't appear to be needed, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

_Wait a second. _Buffy thought, as her supernatural sense she had nicknamed her Slaydar started 'pinging'.

There was something supernatural in the area. And not too far away.

Of course. Just after she thought _better safe than sorry._

"And irony continues to dominate my life." Buffy muttered under her breath, before turning to James. "James, we should hurry. It's really late, and we don't want your parents to get too worried." The Slayer concocted an excuse on the fly as she sped up to keep pace with him. "Come on." She continued as she began to pull away to the front.

James gave a small, humorless chuckle, but followed anyway.

Buffy searched the area around, behind, and even above them to try to locate whatever creature was causing her Slayer sense to tingle.

And then, suddenly, as her gaze swept a house across the street for a third time, she saw it, standing in the yard. Her wonder at where it had appeared from so quickly was secondary to the surprise at its form.

It was tall, roughly seven feet, and had green skin that was seemed to be either patterned or scales from where Buffy was standing. She was willing to bet on scales. It had eyes that were black, but had a small, luminous yellow core. Its front teeth were long, thin, and bloodstained. The demon had a torso like a tree trunk, with thick arms that extended down into clawed hands.

The demon, grinning widely, stepped out onto the street, watching her the entire time.

Buffy stared down the demon, waiting for it to make its' move. The two stayed like that for several moments, a tense silence growing, until the demon extended its' clawed hand, pointed at James, and opened its' mouth.

"Let me have my lunch." The voice was calm, but not pleasant to hear. It grated against Buffy's ears, deep, and raspy enough to make her want to flinch.

"James; go now. Run home." Buffy ordered, voice deadly serious. James took one look at what she was gazing at, and nodded. "I think I can do that." He told her, voice trembling slightly. "What is that thing?"

"A demon." Buffy answered, voice firm. "Now go."

The demon took another step toward her.

Xander could see Giles grimace as he inspected the headless corpse. It was hard to envy the Watcher at the moment. Not that Xander usually did, but he _really_ didn't envy him right then. All Xander was doing was sitting on the floor of the stage and looking through a book for any of the signs Giles had described.

"Hmm…"the older British man mused. "The flesh of the neck doesn't bear any signs of being pulled off. In fact, it looks like it was, um, severed. But that doesn't explain the grooves here…" Giles trailed off as Xander tried not to imagine what Giles was talking about.

"Alright, G-man. Severed with grooves." He peered over at Willow before cracking a smile. "Groovy." He joked. Willow shot him a "now is not the time" look. He shrugged apologetically before delving back into his relatively thin-but still too thick for his taste- demonic compendium.

"Giles, could it be another Ms. French?" Willow suggested as she paged through her own thick, dusty tome.

"I don't think so. The style of severance does not quite match. And these grooves…it appears as though some type of _needle_ were used to push through the flesh." Giles' voice echoed up from the trap door, sounding troubled.

An unpleasant picture of a demonic doctor filled Willow's mind. It was dressed in a surgeon's outfit, complete with mask, laughing diabolically as it pushed needles into the neck of a struggling patient.

Scratch that thought. That picture hadn't been unpleasant; it was _horrifying._

"I hope we find this thing soon…" Willow whispered as she delved back into the book she was using to research.

"Hey, Giles, could it be-oh, wait; never mind." Xander interrupted himself. "I thought those were needles, but they were just really scary teeth." He explained as he went back to his reading.

There was a shocked silence from the pit. Then, the moment passed, and Giles' voice rang out with a fervor only bestowed by true hope. "Xander! That might just be it! They could be teeth! Long and thin teeth, to be sure, but some demons possess teeth that match that description. And that would explain the hastened breakdown of flesh by the neck; demon saliva is generally more potent than a human's, after all." Giles' congratulations began to devolve into a lecture, but the librarian managed to pull himself back on track. "But, um, I digress. Xander, bring the book here; show me that picture!"

Xander obediently scooted over and handed down the tome. Willow could hear Giles' muttering to himself, but couldn't quite make out what he said until the book reappeared in her view, along with a negative assessment by the Watcher. "No, I don't believe it is that particular creature, Xander. For one, it is too short. The angle of the grooves in the neck indicate that the bite came from directly above the victim. So, either the creature is tall, or can extend its' neck. That creature has neither of those attributes. However, I do believe you are on the right track; keep looking at teeth!"

Willow felt a little exasperated as she had to thumb quickly back through the part of the book she'd already passed through, looking at the mouths of illustrations that she passed. "No…Djinn, no…succubus, definitely not…" she muttered as she raced through the previous illustrations.

"Hey." Xander said suddenly, breaking her concentration. "Buff's had time to get almost anywhere in Sunnydale and back by now. Where is she?"

Buffy ducked under another blow from the demon, but barely. She could hear the wind whistling above her head and struck her own blow-a kick to the knee. Her opponent staggered back, caught off balance. The Slayer rushed to take advantage of that fact by doing a hop forward-kick that slammed into the demons' chest. It knocked him to the ground, and Buffy raced to her downed foe, drawing a stake as she did so. She wasn't sure what a sharp stick would do to penetrate her enemies' armoring scales, but she figured she could find some place to stab it. The eye looked promising.

When she reached the demon, however, she discovered that it hadn't been defeated. Before she could react, its' fist rocketed toward her from the side, knocking her right leg out from under her and sending the blonde crashing to the ground. There was a small crunch as pain shot through her skull when it met the asphalt of the road. With a gasp of pain, Buffy brought her hand to the back of her head, and it came away bloody.

She felt a surge of anger wash through her, and she was ready to go again. Buffy got ready to launch herself to her feet, when suddenly two yellow orbs entered her view. Her foe reached down and, locking his hand around her throat, began to raise her into the air. She could feel his hand tighten, trying to choke her. Even just thinking about it seemed to make it hard to breathe, Buffy discovered as her lungs began to cry for air.

Buffy's vision began to tunnel, collapsing in on itself as she slid closer to unconsciousness. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out a course of action, but nothing quite made sense anymore. The last rational part of Buffy's brain was telling her she was about to pass out.

There was a light _thud_, and the demon blinked a couple of times in surprise. Then, her opponent slowly looked behind him. He dropped her to the ground uncaringly, and started after his new attacker, growling.

When Buffy recovered enough to start looking-thank you Slayer durability!- she saw a fearful James backing away from the demon holding a baseball bat.

"I told you to go." Buffy croaked out as he drew near her. James nodded vaguely, distracted by the demon coming after him. "I did. I came back." Even the bravado he was trying to project wasn't quite enough to combat the fear in his voice. Buffy noticed it even as she began struggling back to her feet. "Why?" Buffy managed to ask.

James drew back the baseball bat, and swung it with all of his might. The blow connected with the demon's abdomen-and the wooden bat shattered uselessly against the beast.

"You know, I'm starting to wonder the same thing." James muttered as he backed away from the demon, a predator's grin on its horrific face.

The Slayer was hurt, but gathering strength quickly. Seeing that James was holding the demon's attention nicely for the moment, she decided on going with a surprise attack.

The instant Buffy reached that decision was the same moment that the demon lashed out with a swift, powerful backhand. A Slayer could have barely dodged the blow, but James was a normal person, without such speed. The blow connected hard, sending him flying back into the yard behind him. The demon watched with a cruel, satisfied look, before it took a step to follow its prey.

"That's far enough." Buffy announced as she ran toward her large opponent. She slanted her feet as she ran, and suddenly she was sliding quickly on the road. The adrenaline flowing through her prevented her from feeling it, but at least some part of her was aware that she either had gained a massive friction burn on her left leg, or she had torn some of her skin off.

Shaking it off, she kicked the demon in the back of the knee, which stopped her momentum. She then quickly rolled to the side and sprang up in a ready position. Drawing a second stake she kept on her, she dove at her foe, knocking both of them over, the demon onto its' back, with Buffy atop it.

Buffy raised the stake over her head, ready to slam it down into the demons' yellow eyes-when the demon spoke again.

This time, she noted through her mental fog, the voice wasn't raspy or grating. The closest adjective she could think of to describe that voice would be…heavenly. The demons' voice rolled through her body and mind, sweet as honey, soft as silk. It was such a beautiful sound that all Buffy could do was let it fill her and carry her mind away.

"You don't want to hurt me." The demon told her. Buffy could only nod numbly, eyes wide, as the stake fell from her suddenly lax fingers.

"You are going to let me go find another meal in peace." It advised her. Buffy could only nod again, stand, and back away, freeing her former foe. The demon laughed a laugh that would make angels jealous.

"You are going to stay right there." The demon pointed to where she now stood next to James, spell-bound.

James frowned as he watched all of this happen. "Buffy?" He inquired, concerned, as he waved a hand in front of her face. "Buffy, are you okay?"

The demon chuckled again. "She's just fine." It told James, whose head lazily drifted around to find the owner of the impossibly beatific voice. James nodded dreamily as he accepted the words of their enemy.

"Oh; one more thing." The demon raised an index finger, as if just remembering. In two short strides, he reached them, cocked back a fist, and delivered an enormous uppercut to Buffy's chin. She flew back into the wall of the house behind her with an audible _thud_, and fell to the ground, leaving a noticeable Buffy-shaped imprint in the wall. He then turned and walked away.

The hypnosis snapped as the demon walked away, leaving James free to run over and inspect Buffy. He was quite frankly surprised to find her alive when he got there. He received another pleasant surprise when she told him nothing was broken.

"How did you fight that thing? I mean, I tried, but I'd need to go to the hospital after just one more hit, let alone any of the ones he landed on you. And I wasn't anywhere near fast enough to dodge," James thought for a brief second before continuing, "really, any more than just one of his attacks. I've never seen anyone move so fast! And you actually _hurt_ him! You know, considering what just happened, I feel that I am well within reason when I ask," he took a deep breathe to steady himself before continuing, "what _are_ you?!"

Buffy sighed. "If you're going to insist on an answer, at least let's get to your house first. That guy isn't the only creature of the night lurking around, trust me." She glanced down at the leg she slid on to find it lightly dripping blood. _Great; _she thought to herself. _Now I'm going to be a vampire magnet until we can get to his place._

"Come on." She waved him on, and began limping lightly in the direction they had been going before the demon interrupted them.

"Hey, I just had a thought." She addressed James as they continued. "How did you know who the victim was?"

James lowered his head and let out a sad sigh. "Terry was the only one I know who wore super-hero shirts to practice."

Buffy cocked her head to the side and thought. "How do you know it wasn't someone else who wore shirts like that?" She asked.

James shrugged. "Because if it was anyone else, Terry would have come down from the light booth after practice." James walked silently for a few seconds, head down as guilt trickled through his being. "I thought he was just setting up something to play around with for tomorrow. He always liked doing things like that."

Buffy recognized the tone, and put her hand on his shoulder. "Hey. There is no possible way this was your fault, okay? Even if you had seen it happening, what could you have done? Seriously. You can't fight demons." She reminded him bluntly. It may have been a little harsh, but it was the truth, and she felt that James needed to hear it. And, hey, if remembering this conversation helped him by making him not fight a demon later in his life, bonus, right?

James nodded despondently. "Yeah. I'm starting to get that."

The rest of the walk to James' house was completed in silence.

"Crowley's guide to demonology-no." Giles muttered as he gently placed the book on the 'unhelpful' pile of books. Aleister Crowley had known a lot about demons for a man who introduced himself to the supernatural world, but he wasn't as much of an authority as he thought he was.

"Native spirits of Germany? I guess this could be worth a look-see." Xander surmised as he cracked open a thick book with a red, yellow, and black cover.

Willow frowned inquisitively as she pulled a thick, old book off of the shelf they were searching "The Power of Prayer: The Ins and Outs of Faith Magic?" Her voice was full of curiosity.

"Hm? Oh, yes." Giles remembered the book. Not particularly well, since faith magic wasn't used very often, but he remembered the fundamentals of the subject. "What about it, Willow?"

"I didn't know that religion factored into magic." She mused, cracking the book open to see beautiful calligraphy underlying even more beautiful pictures.

"Yes, but it only factors into specific spells." Giles said. "And it's very difficult to use. One must have a completely pure faith. More often than not, a person who tries to use faith magic will be disappointed. A devotion to God-or really any of the interpretations of the singular God-strong enough to power magic is not common. Particularly in this…modern age." The librarian shot a nasty look at the computer as he said 'modern.'

"There are some aspects that anyone can use, however." Giles continued his impromptu lecture. "Those generally are based on holy symbols, and the power and popularity of said symbols. Actually, that is why crosses can hurt and repel vampires. The popularity of the symbol, combined with the fact that a holy cross stands for what is thought to be the ultimate sacrifice that purified the entire race of man, lends it quite a bit of power when dealing with vampires." The librarian continued. "Faith magic can be quite powerful, when one is found that can wield it. Exorcisms, healings, defenses against hostile magic-all are part of a faith mages' arsenal. However, as I mentioned before, not very many people can use it. Many people have thought they could use faith magic, and been wrong."

"I'm Jewish, and that's a version of the singular god. The original, in fact! Maybe I could do it." Willow commented, hope rising in her tone at the thought of learning such an art.

Giles looked at her skeptically. "Do you truly believe in it?" He asked.

Willow wilted a little. "I don't think so…" Willow admitted, a little ashamed. She kept some of the traditions, sure, and celebrated Hanukkah instead of Christmas, but mostly she followed Judaism because she had once hoped that her parents would approve if she did it. The truth was that it hadn't changed a thing for them.

She looked up at Giles again, expression once more one of a student wishing to learn. "Why only the singular God? Why doesn't it work for, say, Hindu people?"

Giles frowned. "The truth is that no one has any idea why faith magic behaves the way it does. The only conclusion we can come to is that it taps into _some_ higher power. Whether it's the one the user believes themselves to be tapping into remains to be seen." He explained, a little embarrassed at his lack of knowledge.

"Regardless, I don't think that particular book is what we're looking for right now." Giles interrupted any more of Willow's forming questions, reaching for a new book to inspect for clues.

"Oh, right!" Willow said, shutting the book on the page that depicted an ancient faith mage battling a demon named Laralek the Deceiver. According to the caption, anyway; she hadn't managed to look at the actual picture.

A longer moment of silence fell as the three continued looking through books for possibilities.

"Hmmm…" Giles broke the silence once again. Willow looked up, surprised, to see Giles staring in the direction of the library doors, brow furrowed.

"What is it?" Willow asked, following his gaze, but seeing nothing.

"Xander had a point. Buffy really should have been back by now." Concern was threaded throughout the Watcher's voice. "You two stay here and keep researching; I'm going to go look for her." Giles commanded, striding purposefully over to the weapons cage.

"I'll start by looking at her house, then James' house. If you find anything, write it down." He gestured to the notepad in the center of the table between the staircases.

"Aye aye, cap'n Giles." Xander saluted jokingly as Giles hurried out the door.

"So, vampires and demons are real?" James repeated, trying to get his head around everything Buffy had just told him.

"Yup."

They were seated in James' living room; Buffy had placed him on the soft couch while she took a stiffer chair. Looking around the Spartan room, James couldn't think of a time when it had seemed so alien. Then again, he'd never had his whole world turned on its' head before, either.

"And you're something called a Vampire Slayer, which means it's your job to kill the nasties that bump people off in the night?" James checked.

"And in the day sometimes, too." Buffy agreed with a nod.

"And the librarian is something called a Watcher, which means he trains you and prepares you to fight the baddies?" James recalled disbelievingly.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"And I'm not going insane?"

"The jury's still out on that one." Buffy snarked. "But I think you're probably safe."

"Okay, one last question." Buffy raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Okay, one last question _before_ the next three hundred." James amended. Buffy nodded in acceptance. "_Why_ did you tell _me_ all of this?" James asked. "'Cause from the way you're talking, this is all supposed to be a great big secret.

"Well…" Buffy began, but stopped. Why had she told James about her secret life? It was supposed to be, well, _secret_, just like he'd said. "I…guess because you've already seen a demon so I couldn't just wave it away like people do with everything else, and telling you is more likely to keep you safe than letting you flounder around like most people in this town."

"I see." James simply sat there for a few seconds, absorbing the information, before a thoughtful look began to spread across his face. "Hey, I just had a thought. If demons are running around, what about their counterparts?"

"What, you mean angels?" Buffy asked, incredulity coloring her tone. At the same time, she couldn't help but see the irony in the fact that the only "Angel" she'd met was still a demon.

"Yeah." James said, nodding, excitement growing. "I mean, there's balance in everything. Everything lives, and it dies. Even undead things die, you just told me they do!"

"I'm not sure that the same thing applies to magic." Buffy said with a frown.

"So, what, you're telling me that a powerful spell doesn't require any sort of a cost to cast?" James challenged. "That curses can't be broken?"

Buffy shrugged. "Well…I don't know all that much about the magic-y stuff. That's really more Giles' department." She deflected.

"Alright; fair." James held up his hands in acquiescence. "But let me phrase my point this way; you say Slayers are chosen, that you're called to be one. Well, that leads to one question; who does the choosing?"

Buffy opened her mouth, but nothing came out. The truth was, she had contemplated that often in the past-mostly pre-Sunnydale, however. She'd realized that that sort of wondering didn't help her do what she had to do, so she'd stopped. But still, maybe James has a point.

Buffy looked up at him. "So; gonna start attending church?" Buffy asked, a small, friendly laugh in her voice.

James gave her a look that said, 'do you blame me?' "Well, I find out demons are running around the world; what better time is there?" He asked.

"You got me there." Buffy admitted.

The knock came as a surprise to both Buffy and James. James-being the one who actually lived in the house-got up to answer the door.

"Hello? Oh, Mr. Giles!" He greeted in surprise. "What are you doing here?" He asked.

"Hello, James. Actually, I was looking for Buffy. Is she still here, by any chance?" Giles queried.

"Yes, she is." Buffy appeared at James' shoulder. "What's up? Yet another dastardly evil determined to destroy the world?" She asked in a tone that left some doubt to whether she was being sarcastic or not.

"Well…well, no, not as of yet." Giles fussed, looking down in minor embarrassment. "The truth is, you were taking quite some time, and we all grew, um, concerned."

Buffy's eyebrows jumped for her hairline. "Really? Maybe they should change your title from Watcher to Babysitter." She commented with a friendly air.

"Believe me, I've pondered the necessity." The Watcher responded to his charges' good-natured jibe with one of his own. "But yes, um, I think that you should either return to your own home for some rest, or come back to the library to aid in research."

"Whew. You know how much I love finding which nasties love to eat people in which ways, Giles, but I think I'm gonna have to head home." She remarked, more than a touch of sarcasm lacing her words.

"James!" She called back as she moved around Giles. "Remember; you might want to rest your side for a while; go easy on it."

"Yes, of course." Giles allowed Buffy to pass him on her way out, and suddenly seemed to remember James' existence. "She was not, of course, referring to actual, um 'nasties', naturally. She was referring to research for a, ah, project they are doing for a class." Giles verbally fumbled as he tried to hide the truth from the young in in front of him.

"It's alright, Giles; he knows." Buffy called from the driveway.

"Oh, very good." Giles muttered as he turned and followed Buffy off of the porch. "Wait, how does he know?"

"Bye…" James waved meekly, forgotten.

"I told him." Buffy stated matter-of-factly as she climbed into the passengers' seat of Giles' car.

"Why did you tell him?" Giles asked in vehement disbelief.

"Because we'd just been attacked by a demon, he'd managed to hit it with a baseball bat, and got punched by it. Plus he wasn't drowning himself in denial like everyone else around here. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that I _told_ him it was a demon just before it attacked."

Giles blinked in surprise and concern as he extracted the truly pertinent information from Buffy's rambling. "Good lord, you were attacked by a demon?" Giles asked, worry taking over.

Buffy nodded. "Yup. Ugly, too. Probably hit about seven feet, scales, claws, teeth like knives, the whole deal." She described the demon as well as she could remember.

Giles nodded, going over the list of attributes in his memory. That ruled out many possibilities, but there were a few demons that had all of those traits. He needed to know more. "Was there anything else unique about this demon?" Giles inquired, manner shifting from the kindly librarian to the intense Watcher.

Buffy's brow furrowed as she stared through the window blankly, as if she could see another time through it. "Yeah…" Buffy muttered distantly. Seconds later, her head snapped back around to face Giles. "Yeah, there is something else. His voice. The first time he spoke, he asked to eat James. But when that happened, he had this horrible voice. Like, nails on a chalkboard have nothing on this guy. But then, during the fight, he spoke again. He told me I didn't want to hurt him. And all of a sudden…I didn't. Not only that, but his voice sounded completely different!"

Giles' own brow was furrowing as he contemplated possibilities. "How did it change?" He asked.

"It was beautiful!" Buffy told him frankly, admiration clear. "I-I don't even know how to describe it!"

"Hmmm…" Giles pondered. "This will require more research, but I think you've given us a very important clue. I'll drive you home, and we can continue this in the morning."

Buffy nodded. "I'm okay with that."

"Good." Giles nodded with authority as he started the car. "Now put on your seat belt, Buffy."

James lay still, sleeping with a peace that was not reflected inside. His mind was filled with images flashing past, images that showed little connection to each other save for the people in them. He saw Buffy fighting monsters with human bodies-vampires, his dream self knew. He caught a glimpse of Xander stabbing another one in the back with an easel, the vampire exploding into dust. He saw Willow, hacking a computer. He could see the entire group-Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles, he even glimpsed Cordelia in a few of the images, much to his surprise. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he knew, too, that most of these images had not yet come to pass.

And, as the images flooded past him, he began to see himself appearing in them. Fighting a vampire, leaping onto a demons' back knife in hand, sitting in inside a circle on the ground with Willow as she chanted in some old language; after that one, the images sped up, rushing past too quickly for him to see.

Though James wouldn't remember most of this when he awoke, his dream-self was, in the way a dream-self knows everything, aware of the fact that these visions did not come under his own power. Something was showing him these images.

The dream-self was too busy pondering that fact to feel the cosmic shift that was a change in destiny.


	3. Investigation

_Buffy is not, and will never be, mine. Odds are I wouldn't want to own it even if that was possible; I'd be too afraid of screwing it up. I only own James McAnon and Laralek The Deceiver._

_ ###_

For Buffy, the next morning began with surprise and confusion when she saw police cars parked in front of the school. Her first thoughts were incredulous and frustrated. _We have police? Where have they been every _other _week of the last school year?!_

She had almost reached the front doors by the time the second question occurred to her._ Why are they here now?!_ She suspected that she already knew the answer, but that didn't stop her from rushing to the library.

She burst through the library doors without slowing down, striding purposefully up to Giles where he was standing, next to the library table. "What happened?" She demanded immediately.

Giles turned around to face her. He took off his glasses to polish them as he gave her the news. "It would seem there has been another attack." He replied.

Buffy nodded. "Okay; what are we doing about it?"

"Well, Xander, Willow, and, um, James all are going to make sure the death fits the pattern, so that we can attempt to find anything the victims may have in common. Activities, clubs…anything that might attract a monster." Giles informed her as he sat down at the table.

"Make sure it fits the pattern? What, you weren't sure if the guys' head got bitten off?" Buffy shot back acerbically. "How would you miss that, exactly?"

"Well, the police are being rather tight-lipped about the whole affair, really." Giles defended. "How was a school librarian supposed to demand information from the authorities about a death? That is hardly in my capacity as book keeper."

"Watchers don't get any special 'looking-at-dead-things' licenses, huh?" Buffy asked rhetorically as she moved to sit down next to Giles.

"No, we don't. Perhaps I should phone in to the Council and suggest that. It would make things a great deal easier when dealing with incidents like this." Giles pondered with an inaudible sigh.

A comfortable, yet weary silence settled between the mentor and his charge for several moments before Buffy decided to break it.

"So. James is one of the crew now, huh?" She asked. Giles gestured vaguely. "I suppose he is. For now, at least. You know, Buffy," He began, "Someday we must really have a talk about bringing people into this life. Slayers aren't supposed to have anyone close to them, for fear that they could be used to control you. No family, no friends, and certainly nobody who would throw themselves into danger like Xander and Willow. And now you've brought James in on it…" Giles trailed off tiredly.

Buffy shook her head. "Sorry Giles, but I don't think that lifestyle would work for me." She disagreed.

"No, I don't suppose it would, would it?" Giles asked with a fond sigh.

Another comfortable silence descended.

"So, how do you think Xander, James and Willow are doing?"

###

"The police probably aren't just going to let us peek at the body. We need some sort of plan to distract them, or something." James suggested as the three strode quickly toward the police cars.

Xander spun around to face James, walking backwards. He held out one hand in the universal gesture of 'stop.' "Don't worry about it, James. Let us senior Scoobs take this."

James opened his mouth to protest, but Xander spun back around to face front, and picked up his pace.

"Hello, officer! Fine day we're having, isn't it?" Xander beamed at the officer, letting cheer pour out of every orifice.

The officer glared at the offensively cheerful teen. "I don't know if you've heard, son, but there's been a death. That's why I'm here." He spoke stoically.

Xander had the grace to act like he was embarrassed. "Well, actually officer…I have actually heard that, and really it's-it's kind of funny…"Xander artfully stammered.

"I'm not laughin'." The officer interjected.

"Right, sorry." Xander bowed his head. "But, ya see, my friend here," he gestured to Willow, "really, _really_ wants to be a police officer once she gets out of school. So, we thought, 'hey! Why not start now!' You know, a little extra CSI training couldn't hurt, right?" Xander lied ardently, hopeful smile plastered across his face.

The officer's skeptical gaze shifted over to Willow, who tried to look like she wanted to be a police officer. "Oh, yeah! I want to be a policewoman! Serve and protect, that's my motto! I want to, you know, catch criminals, and other…police-y things…" Willow's lie trailed off and she frowned for a moment. However, she quickly remembered she was supposed to be fooling someone, and put her earnest face back on.

Willow was not a very good liar, and it showed.

"Right…" The officer said skeptically. "The truth is, the public isn't supposed to be able to see bodies being processed for investigation."

"Oh…" Willow imagined that she'd gotten a 'C' on a test, and her disappointed face came to the fore. If she'd looked around, she'd have seen Xander putting his own disappointed face on, and even James' near-flawless performance.

"Look," the officer said, a combination of annoyed and only slightly moved- or so he told himself-by the teens who wanted to follow in his footsteps. "I couldn't let you see the scene anyway. Not all of the evidence has been taken in yet. Just the body and a few other things that could contribute to the case."

"Oh…alright." Willow frowned, trying to keep her disappointed look on as she turned and walked away, the two guys trailing behind her.

As soon as the three turned the corner of the school, the façade dropped away, and Xander turned to James, smiling. "See? Told you we'd do it."

"Even though you didn't actually get him to let us see the body." James pointed out.

"Well, it wasn't there. But I'm sure he would have let us if it had been." Xander nodded firmly.

"Well, now we need to actually go find it." James told the other two.

"Well, that shouldn't be too hard. I already know where the police station is, and where else would they look at dead bodies for investigations?" Willow interjected.

"Doesn't the idea of _breaking into_ a _police station_ make you guys a little nervous?" James asked as they wended their way off campus.

"Nah, we sneak into morgues and other creepy places with dead people all the time." Xander reassured him. "Everything'll be fine."

"But we're going to be skipping classes to do it." James pointed out. "Snyder's going to be pissed if he finds out."

Xander nodded, having not really considered the possibility before. "If. If is good." He quoted to the other two, who nodded vehemently.

###

"So; how are we going to do this? We don't want to get caught breaking into the police station." James asked Xander.

"Hey, maybe we could do the distraction thing again." Willow offered.

"First let's look for another way in. I'd rather not walk right past the police if at all possible." James suggested.

"So, what do we do?" Xander asked.

"Just look for another way in, I guess." Willow suggested.

"Meet back here in five minutes?" James suggested. Both of the others nodded, and the three split up.

Xander wandered around the corner to the back of the police station, not entirely sure what he was looking for. He supposed a back door would be good, but other than that, he didn't really know.

As he walked past the back, something glimmered in the corner of his eye. Turning quickly, he followed the glint…and saw, to his utter surprise, a window, set in a hole in the ground. Curious, he laid down on his stomach and inched forward until he could peer through the window. He could see into a room with an object in the center that looked like an operating table.

As he watched, two police men entered, carrying a black body bag between them and accompanied by a man wearing glasses and a lab coat.

"Lookee here." Xander mumbled to himself. "I think I found what I'm looking for."

He pushed himself off the ground and began to make his way back to the meeting point. He made a brief attempt at whistling a jaunty tune as he brushed the stray gravel off of his shirt, but he gave up once he realized that his whistling sounded similar to a bird being hit with a rock.

He waited for barely a minute before the other two rounded the opposite corner from where he had investigated.

"I didn't find anything noteworthy." James informed them.

"I found a back door to the station!" Willow said brightly, pleased by her success.

Xander chuckled. "That's cute, Will. But let me show you what _I_ found." He turned around and marched off, leading the way to the window. It didn't take long to get there, and once they arrived he stopped and gestured dramatically at it. "Lady and Gentleman, may I present to you…our entrance." He announced, bowing.

Willow giggled at his antics as James nodded his head. "Nice work Xander!" He smiled at the other boy in congratulations.

Xander bowed again, this time even more extravagantly. "Thank you, thank you, thank you very much." He slipped into a passable Elvis impression at the last four words.

"Alright; let's get in there and steal us a corpse!" Willow exclaimed with a broad grin.

###

"Oof!" Xander let out a grunt as he hit the ground at a slight angle, sending him tumbling to the floor of the cramped examination room. As he positioned himself to get up, his legs smacked into the back of Willow's legs, sending her to the floor after him.

James shook his head. "Alright, fellow stooges; quit the slapstick. We've got work to do." He took a step into the room-and promptly tripped when Willow's flailing foot hooked around his supporting ankle.

James sat up, nursing a bruised forehead and a wide grin. "Okay; I'll admit, _that_ was funny." He whispered to the other two. "But seriously, we're here for a reason." He disentangled himself from the other two and stood up, Xander close behind him. Willow scrambled up after the two boys, blushing furiously at having been in such close contact with Xander. She had practically been lying on top of him!

Shaking her head, she brushed those thoughts out of her mind, and followed the two toward the examination table that held the body bag on it.

"Let Wills near the head." Xander suggested. "If anybody's going to be able to see and remember the stuff Giles listed off, it'll be her. James, you help her. And I'll…stand watch, I guess." With that, Xander wandered over to the 'proper' entry-I.E. the door-to make sure no officers came down to interfere with _their_ dead body.

The two assigned to investigate the body walked over to the body bag, and stood staring at it for the next thirty seconds. While Willow knew she probably had seen more bodies than James had, she still had no desire to see another decapitated corpse. Especially not with Giles' theory that the head had actually been…_bitten_ off.

James saw Willow staring hesitantly at the body bag out of the corner of his eye. He really, _really_ didn't want to see the body either.

The two amateur investigators looked at each other, and then back at the bag.

"You know, we probably don't have to _steal_ it." James pointed out. "We could just take a look."

Willow nodded. "Well, that's true. But what if we miss a vital clue that makes Giles look up the wrong monster? A-and then we can't figure out how to kill it properly, so it keeps coming back until it kills us!" Willow protested.

"Calm down, Will. We won't make that big of a mistake." James reassured her.

"Hey, guys? Could you maybe hurry up a smidge?" Xander hissed from the doorway. "I don't particularly want to be arrested for body browsing, okay!"

"O-okay!" Willow nodded earnestly at her old friend, who, noting her nervousness, gave her an encouraging smile.

Internally, James sighed. He really, really, _re-he-eally_ didn't want to get that close to a _second_ dead body in as many days, but the thought of making Willow do it made him cringe a little inside.

Chivalry taking over, James reached over and unzipped the body bag.

"Oh, gross!" Willow quietly exclaimed at the sight that greeted them.

"Ugh!" Was all James could really say, disgusted as he was by both the sight and the smell of such a large amount of blood. "I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that!" He groaned.

"I don't think one does get used to it." Willow agreed as she steeled herself to inspect the corpse.

"I think we can say it fits the pattern, Willow." James interjected, holding his nose against the coppery scent of gore.

"Not yet." Willow said, voice as firm as she could make it. "We need to see if the neck wound is consistent with the other victims." She insisted.

"Sure." James agreed. "I'll see what else I can find about him." He nodded toward the victim.

James stepped away from the head of the corpse, headed into the lab in general to see if he could find a file, or something of the sort. On an impulse, he stopped by the foot of the body, and reached into the bag. He grimaced at the feeling of cold flesh, but he persevered. Finding what he was looking for, he pulled the corpses' foot out of the bag and peered at the toe tag.

And his heart fell into his stomach. "Michael Adams." He muttered aloud. "Mike…" Michael was another member of the drama club, one of their most talented and passionate members. He had been intending to do the Yorik monologue from Hamlet for the fund-raiser.

Somehow, what with Michael being dead, and the fact that his head had been removed, that fact was like a dark, disturbing joke.

"Guys, hurry up! There are some other people down here!" Xander hissed at them from the doorway.

His warning galvanized the other two; Willow began checking over the neck with researching-for-an-apocalypse-level urgency, while James leapt for the table that would most likely have the file on it.

Xander could feel sweat running down his forehead as he tried to both hide behind the doorframe and watch at the same time. True, he'd faced down vampires and demons before, but this was something entirely different. This was trouble with the law, and that followed you.

_Besides,_ Xander thought, _the law isn't exactly something I can get Buffy to slay._ His thoughts were interrupted by a quiet exclamation from Willow. "It matches!" Instantly, Xander swung around to face the room. "Alright, let's go! Hurry!"

By unspoken agreement, Willow went first. It was as much a chivalrous decision as a practical one; true, Willow needed to get back to Giles more than any of them, so she could tell them that the demon had, in fact, struck again. But both James and Xander cared greatly for her well-being, and didn't want her getting caught by the police.

Xander nodded at James to go through next. James shook his head vehemently, but Xander nodded at the window even more vigorously. There was no way he was going to let a friend risk themselves when he would do just as well.

Apparently, James felt the same, as he shook his head again.

The two boys had a silent argument that lasted for the next twelve seconds, resulting in James walking over to the window, disgruntled.

As James was half-way through the window, Xander heard someone shout, "Hey! What are you doing?!" around the corner of the doorway. Acting quickly, Xander slammed the door shut-and heard a loud _thunk._ Apprehension filling his body, he opened the door just enough to peer around it-and saw the police officer from the parking lot sitting on the ground, holding his head in pain.

Xander shut the door again, and looked to see that James had made it out of the window. Xander bolted for it, taking a running start and jumping part of the way up the wall between him and the window. He grabbed on before he could fall, and began pulling himself into the window. When he was two-thirds of the way up, he felt a pair of hands on his arms-one set small and feminine, the other large and masculine.

"Thanks guys!" He grunted as they helped pull him up.

"No problem." An unfamiliar voice answered. Surprised, Xander looked up-to see a man and a woman dressed in police blues, each holding an arm, with his two friends behind them being eyed by two other police officers.

"Oh…umm…nice station you got, officers?" He offered with a weak chuckle.

###

Buffy couldn't help but grumble once she saw the list of supernatural suspects. "I can't even pronounce over half of these! What the heck's a _jotun_?" She asked, hitting the 'j' in the word hard.

"It's Norse for Giant." Giles' voice was distracted as he flipped furiously through one of his reference books for a likely culprit.

"I doubt that what I fought was Norse. I mean, where would the Norse have gotten the idea of scales from? Reptiles don't live in the cold like that." Buffy commented.

"Perhaps they learned of reptiles close to where they came up with a _giant snake._" Giles' sarcasm could have been cut with a knife and served for lunch. "And we don't know for absolute sure that what you fought is the culprit." He reminded her. "It may be a good assumption, but it is still that; an assumption. Assumptions can be quite deadly." Glancing back, he noticed she was ignoring him, lazily flipping through a book. "And of course, you are completely ignoring me." Giles added under his breath in irritation.

"Huh. Faith magic, huh? Maybe I should show James this. He was talking about going to church; maybe he could do it." Buffy commented off-handedly.

"Buffy, it takes much more than simply being willing to attend church to be able to practice faith magic. One must have a pure faith; not motivated by power, or defense, or even necessarily having any sort of proof. It's a very rare form of magic-" Giles was cut off by Buffy shooting to a full standing position, alarm and disbelief warring on her face. "That's him." She whispered.

"What?" Giles asked, moving to her side to look.

"That's the guy I fought. His name is," Buffy checked the caption at the bottom of the picture. "Laralek the Deceiver? Sounds like a pleasant guy."

"The Deceiver…" Giles flipped through his mental catalogue of notable demons. If this demon had a name on his own, especially a name like that one, it was probably an exceptionally powerful, tricky, or otherwise dangerous being.

"I believe I've heard that name before." The librarian retreated to his fortress of bookshelves to search for the applicable volume. "What does that book say about him?" His voice rang out from the depths of the stacks.

"Nothing. It only shows him in a picture and says his name in the caption." She yelled back as she glanced over the information on the page. She blinked and looked again. "Amendment: it shows him in a picture getting his head cut off." She uttered disbelievingly.

"Hey, Giles! If this is him getting his head cut off, why is he walking around eating people?!" She called out.

"I suspect that the picture may be somewhat of an exaggeration of the actual battle." Giles suggested from his position near the back of the room.

"Wait!" She called as she reread the caption. "It says he's an illusionist!"

"Well, yes; that would make sense." Giles' voice dwindled in volume as he emerged from the labyrinth that lay in the back of the library. "If he has earned the title of Deceiver, it would make sense for him to be a master of all forms of duplicity. Including, judging from the picture, the ability to fake his own death."

Giles grunted with effort as he put the small stack of heavy books on the table. "Well, Buffy; choose one, and we shall begin."

Without bothering to look, Buffy dragged a book off of the top of the stack. They were pretty much all the same to her, anyway, so what difference did it make which one she chose?

"Buffy." Giles caught her attention with a tone both curious and doubtful. "I had no idea you could read Greek."

Frowning, Buffy looked down at the book she had chosen. As it turned out, it was in a foreign language she didn't recognize. However, she was willing to trust Giles that it was Greek.

_Correction._ The Slayer thought as she picked another book off of the top. _All the ones I can _read_ are the same to me._

Willow swallowed again, trying to keep her nervousness down as she glanced at her two companions. Xander looked like he was trying to get comfortable in the arm chair, which would be understandably difficult, Willow felt, given that the chair had been her friends' resting place for most of the several hours they'd been waiting in this room.

It was clearly intended to be an official waiting room, with two arm chairs, a couch, and a table in the middle with magazines covering it. However, it was much better appointed than the typical waiting room; the table with the magazines was made of a fine wood, the wallpaper was tastefully arranged, and the only timepiece in the room was an antique-looking grandfather clock in the corner. The whole room was attractive, but had an air of austerity, as if the room shouldn't have to bear anything even remotely disorganized.

Her gaze shifted to James. Unlike the last time she'd looked at him-probably at least twenty minutes ago-he was gripping the arm rests of his chair tightly, and he was breathing deeply. The look of mixed wonder and fear in his eyes made her suspect what he was thinking of, but she asked anyway.

"James? Are you alright?" She whispered.

He had to think for a few seconds before nodding. "Yeah. It's just, now that I have time to really think about everything, I'm kind of freaking out." He reassured her unsuccessfully. Noting the look on her face, he amended his statement. "Sorry; I'm _really_ freaking out."

"How do you mean?" Willow asked, concerned.

"Just…that was a _demon_ I saw last night." He lowered his voice in case someone was listening. "And in order to determine the identity of a _demon_, this morning before school we broke into a _police station_ to inspect a _dead body_! And we got caught, and now we're waiting for whoever told the police to bring us here to do whatever it is they want to do!" His breathing sped up a little as panic began taking hold. Willow opened her mouth to calm him, but suddenly he stilled.

_Well, that's good._ Willow told herself.

"Oh god." James murmured. "We've missed the whole school day. Snyder is going to murder us."

_And _that's _bad._ Willow added to her previous thought.

"I don't think we have to worry about that." Xander broke in. "Since it's apparently our punishment to starve to death here." He passed a hand over the surface of his stomach as he made his complaint. Willow couldn't help but giggle a little; it was classic Xander. Ignore the big issues for the little ones. Making light of the stress and fear, buoying them all up, regardless of where the stress was coming from. Even James cracked a smile at the other boy's antics, welcoming the distraction from his own fears.

Noticing the positive reaction he got from his audience, Xander kept going. "I mean, would it kill them to put a Twinkie bar in here, at least?" He threw his out wide exasperatedly.

"I don't think a bar of any kind would fit in here, Xander." James pointed out dryly, a playful smirk gracing his features.

Xander nodded his head. "You know, I really think the intrepid members of the staff here at Mysterious Baddies Incorporated could make it work."

"Mysterious Baddies Incorporated?" Incredulity flooded from James' tone. "What is this, a dumbed-down PowerPuff Girls episode?"

"Well, I could see Wills being Blossom. You know, red hair, fights evil…" Xander trailed off.

"I think that's where the resemblance ends." Willow looked down at herself in mock regret as she said it.

"And if you suggest Buffy is Bubbles because she has blond hair, then you have serious issues." James pre-empted the clown. "She's not _that_ air-headed." He then looked to Willow for confirmation. "She isn't, is she?"

Willow shook her head and smiled. "No, she isn't."

The light-hearted play was broken when the door opened, and a small man poked his head through. "The mayor will see you now." He informed them succinctly.

All three exchanged incredulous looks. _The mayor_?!

As all three rose, the aide held the door open for them. "I apologize for keeping you waiting for so long; the mayor is quite the busy man." He informed them as they passed.

"This way, please." He directed the teens, who followed him down the hall and into the office of Mayor Richard Wilkins the Third.


	4. Heist

_Don't own Buffy, as per usual. Only own James McAnon and Laralek the Deceiver. No actual part of the Buffyverse is owned by me._

_And, I forgot to mention this the last two times I believe, but I would greatly appreciate it if readers would review. Just a reminder._

"Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that we're at the mayor's office and not _in jail_?!" James whispered.

The other two shook their heads subtly. No, he was not the only one.

The mayor's office was clean and businesslike. There were three armchairs-judging by the one on the ends' obviously out of place upholstery, James thought it seemed likely that the chair was pulled out of the waiting room specifically to accommodate all three of them at once. There was a wooden cupboard against the wall to the left that was firmly closed. In the center was the mayor's desk, completely clean and clear except for a name-plate at the very front and a small platter of cookies sitting in the center of his desk.

The mayor himself was sitting in his chair, posture relaxed but nothing that could be considered 'bad', ever-present smile upon his face.

"Hey kids. Anyone want a cookie?" He offered, nodding at his assistant. "Finch's wife made 'em."

"Don't mind if I do." Xander instantly replied, hand snapping out to claim two cookies.

"Um, okay." Willow, rather confused with this turn of events, nevertheless nodded and took a cookie of her own. _Well, he's giving us cookies, so he can't be that bad, right? Although I don't know why he's giving us cookies if he thinks we broke into the police station…_ Willow's thoughts trailed off as she shifted her focus back to the outside world.

"No thanks." James politely declined.

"Suit yourself." The mayor commented cheerfully. "Now kids; why don't we get down to business, huh?" He asked.

All three stiffened slightly; this was the punishment that they'd been expecting.

"Now, I don't believe any of you are criminals. I mean, you, Ms. Rosenberg; straight A's since grade school. Mr. McAnon; outstanding performances in the community theater. Both things, I might add, take up too much time to allow for much criminal activity. And Mr. Harris; with such fine friends as these, I can't expect you to get up to much trouble." The mayor's smile finally broke, replaced by a still-friendly frown of incomprehension. "But that does beg the question, why would you three break into the police station's crime lab? I just don't get it." He sat back in his chair and studied the three unlikely delinquents.

Silence stretched on for several seconds as the mayor gazed at all of them. They all wanted to come up with a story, but didn't want to as much as glance at one another, for fear of garnering attention and suspicion.

The stillness was broken when James looked down, making a show of being embarrassed. "Um…well, sir…we all share a kind of morbid curiosity." He began. "And so, when we heard about the death, Xander here suggested we check it out. The police had already taken the body away, but…well… we _really_ wanted to see the body. We're sorry that we did it, and it won't happen again." James looked up and met the mayor's eyes, expression filled with false-but nonetheless convincing-sincerity.

A few more moments of silence passed as the mayor considered this. Finally, he nodded, and the smile re-appeared on his face. "Well, why didn't you just say so? I mean, really, that's not all that bad."

A nearly simultaneous frown of confusion passed over the faces of all three students. "So we're not being punished?" Willow asked hopefully.

"Well, you did do something wrong, so we probably can't just let you get off completely free." The mayor pondered. "But I don't think what you did really deserves jail. I mean, no harm done, right?" He smiled at them for a few seconds before continuing. "So I'll probably talk to your principal about a suitable punishment for you all."

Xander could feel the blood draining out of his face. "I don't suppose you could just skip right to execution, could you, Mr. Mayor?" He pleaded.

Wilkins shook his head. "Sorry, Mr. Harris. No can do. It's important to make sure that all of you learn to take responsibility for your actions." He informed them kindly. "Now, you kids need to get back over to the school to talk with Mr. Snyder about your punishment."

With a collective sigh, the three students got to their feet and trudged out of the office.

The mayor watched them go intently. His manner transformed when the teens left the room; the jovial light in his eyes transformed into the calculating gaze of a predator. "Finch?"

"Yes, sir?" His aide asked, stepping forward.

"Could you put someone on those children? Something about them just…I don't know. But I've got a feeling about those three." The mayor confided.

"Yes, sir. Would you like to have them killed?" Finch asked. He _could_ take the initiative on this one, but if he killed them and the mayor hadn't wanted them dead…things could get bad.

"Hmmm." The mayor thought briefly. "No, I think just keeping an eye on them should be fine."

"Alright. I'll get right on it sir." Finch nodded respectfully as he turned to leave. At the door, he was stopped when the mayor called out to him. He turned around to find the politician's smile back on his face.

"Tell Marcie the cookies were absolutely delicious for me, would you?" He requested. Finch nodded his head. "I'll let her know." Then he turned around and left the room.

Buffy looked around the library in concern. Willow, Xander, and James hadn't been at school since Giles had reported sending them to investigate the body, and she was worried. Now, having still not found them despite school having been out, she was well past worried and nearing actual fear for her friends.

"Giles!" She called out into the depths of the Watcher's sanctuary.

"Yes, Buffy? What is it?" The Brit emerged from his office, rubbing his eyes. He'd spent the majority of the school day in intensive study, looking for details on Laralek. He'd found alarmingly few that he could rely on, but then, this _was_ the demonic master of duplicity they were talking about, so it at least had some sort of consistency.

"Have any of the others been here yet? They haven't been in any of their classes today, and I didn't see them at lunch either." Concern for her friends filled her voice.

Sighing, Giles took a seat at the table in the center of the library. "I haven't seen them either. However, I did manage to find some information on our foe." He informed her.

Taking a deep breath, Buffy switched from worried friend mode to Slayer mode. "Okay; whatcha got?"

"Well, this book here," Giles began, tapping a book sitting on the table with a finger, "is an extraordinary and reliable resource that contains information on Laralek."

"Does it say how to kill him?" She inquired impatiently.

"Well, not exactly. It alludes to a ritual that can be done to prepare a weapon that can kill him; however, as he is quite clearly not dead, I cannot discern how effective the ritual actually is."

"Alright. Got anything more reliable?" She tried again.

"Well, there is information on his behavior and habits. Apparently he attacks groups that are guilty of major deceptions." Giles flipped through the book, looking for the exact page he'd found earlier.

"What does he do with them?" Buffy asked, curious.

Giles sighed and took his glasses off for emphasis. "He devours their heads." He informed her quietly. After an instant of silence, he turned back to the book. "It says here that he supposedly eats the heads because he derives a sort of nourishment from eating the brains and tongues, where some sort of…spiritual imprint of lies is collected. Or at least, that is what I can gather from the book."

Buffy took in a sharp breath. "So he's our headhunter." She smiled in grim understanding.

"Yes, that was precisely my conclusion." Giles agreed, nodding his head.

"So; what's this ritual that kills him supposed to be? We should get started." Buffy suggested after a short silence.

"But we don't even know if the ritual works." Giles protested. "We should find that out before we attempt it."

Buffy shrugged. "How are we going to do that if he isn't dead?" She pointed out. "And besides; it's not like it'll blow up in our faces if it doesn't work."

"Well, not literally, no, it won't 'blow up'. But using an ineffective weapon is tantamount to suicide!" Giles tried to think of something, anything to say to make her listen. "What will your plan be if the preparation ritual doesn't work?" He challenged.

Buffy shrugged as she grabbed the book that mentioned the ritual. "I'm going to kill him. That works on most things."

Giles gave her a doubtful look as she left the library, and then hurried to catch up to her.

"The first thing the ritual needs is…" Buffy began as she trailed her finger down the page, reading.

"A pure silver knife." Giles recited from memory. "Unfortunately, I don't have one in my collection."

"What? Why don't you have one? Seems like one of those would be dead useful if a werewolf popped up." Buffy considered what she said for a moment, and frowned. "Pun totally not intended."

"It is not difficult to obtain a knife with silver as a _component_. However, obtaining a _pure _silver knife is much more difficult. And I would hardly recommend engaging a werewolf in hand-to-hand fighting to anyone, even a Slayer." Giles commented. "I also wouldn't approve of killing a werewolf."

"Why not? It's supernatural, it kills people, ergo, it needs slaying." Buffy stated plainly as they strode through the halls.

"But that is only at night. And, I might add, only three nights a month." Giles pointed out. "The rest of the time, a werewolf is a human being; and one who might not even realize they are what they are, at that. So I don't feel that killing one is right."

"Well, if you don't kill them, how are you going to make sure they don't maul anyone else?" Buffy challenged. She also made a mental note to ask about the three nights thing later; she was definitely under the impression that the full moon was only one night a month.

"By simply locking them away on the nights they are to change. Apart from then, they are completely normal human beings, after all."

Buffy nodded in acceptance of her defeat. "Okay; I get it. Werewolves; capture, do not slay. Set phasers to stun, as Xander would probably say."

Giles' brow furrowed. "I'm afraid I don't get the reference."

Buffy shook her head. "Nevermind. Geeky guy-and-Willow stuff." She waved it away. "So; how are we going to get a silver knife?"

"I suppose I could send for one from the Watcher's Council." Giles contemplated for a few seconds before waving the idea away. "No; that would take far too long."

"I don't suppose there's a shop in Sunnydale that sells really expensive, really sharp knick-knacks?" Buffy suggested half seriously.

Giles shook his head no. "I do believe I know where we might be able to obtain one. However, we may have to embark upon a…less than legitimate enterprise to do so."

Buffy looked at Giles with a new appreciation for the stuffy librarian. "Wow, Giles; talk about being a bad influence. And here I thought _I_ was the bad one." She gave him a friendly smile to show she wasn't being entirely serious.

"Yes, well, I do believe it is my turn for once." He stated absently as he scanned the environment for listening ears. "I believe we'll have to finish this conversation outside. It would be rather unfortunate for anyone to hear this discussion."

"Alright; fair enough." Buffy agreed. The rest of the walk from the school to the staff parking lot was accomplished in relative silence.

"So; where will we be doing this little bit of crime?" Buffy asked once they were out of earshot.

"Well, there is only one place I could think of that was currently holding a silver knife, and that we could reach and get back from quickly." Giles began as he unlocked his car, and waved her around to the passenger seat while he climbed into the drivers' side.

"In fact, I believe I have the notice…here." Giles reached into his back seat for a moment, before producing a newspaper page and handing it to Buffy.

Buffy took the page and examined it for a moment. "I'm not seeing anything." She told him bluntly.

"I believe it is in the bottom right." The Librarian directed while he started the car.

"Oh, I think I see it." Buffy zeroed in on the relevant article. It stated that the local art gallery had just gotten a shipment of various pieces of centuries old tools and weapons that had been forged and decorated enough to be considered art instead of just antiques.

And then it clicked in Buffy's brain. "Wait…the art gallery? You want to rob my _mom_?!" Her voice rose in incredulous outrage.

"Well, 'want' is a rather strong word for this situation." Giles told her. "I do, however, feel that it is a necessary evil if we want to perform this ritual you insist on."

"Sure, put all the blame on me. You're the one who's saying we should rob an art gallery!" Buffy grumbled.

"Need I remind you that this would hardly be necessary if not for your insistence on this ritual?" Giles rebutted.

"The ritual which is our only sure-fire way to kill Laralek." She reminded him.

"The ritual which by no means is a 'sure-fire.'"Giles countered. "Remember, he is quite clearly not dead."

"Okay, fine!" Buffy threw up her arms in irritation. "This is my fault, I get it."

"Just remember to tell your mother that if we get caught stealing from her establishment." Giles instructed idly as he peered through the windshield.

"No way! She'd kill me!" Buffy protested.

"Of course not. As your Watcher, I'd be forced to intervene." Giles reassured her, a slight quirk of the lips the only indication of his struggle to keep from smiling.

"Thanks." Buffy replied. "So; how are we going to perform our heist?"

"Well, we are going to need some hoods or masks, to hide our identities, as well as clothing that will minimize the possibility of detection." The middle-aged mentor listed off as he drove.

"If you say ski masks and black jumpsuits, then I'm going to punch you." Buffy warned, trying to cut off that possibility as soon as possible.

"Of course I wasn't going to suggest that." The Watcher lied, feigning offense. "But now that you mention them, wouldn't those be good choices to wear during our, erm, robbery?"

"Sure, I guess." Buffy admitted. "But there is no way you're getting me to wear those."

Giles raised his left hand to rub his forehead in exasperation. "Very well; what would you suggest?"

"I have something in mind. But for now, let's move on. What else will we need?" She asked.

"A way to distract any security guards in the area of the knife." Giles suggested as he passed under a traffic light.

"I could knock them out." Buffy offered.

Giles sighed. "Just do no permanent damage."

"Okay then. Security is taken care of." She said matter-of-factly.

"Are you sure? They should have more than just night watchmen on duty." Giles replied doubtfully.

"No, I don't-wait! They'll probably have security cameras." Buffy realized suddenly.

"Do we have a way to neutralize those?" Giles asked.

A sly smile appeared on Buffy's face. "I think we do." And with a glance out the window at the side of the street… "And speak of the devil."

"Hm?" Giles risked a quick glance out the window, where he saw Xander, Willow and James walking along the sidewalk.

Surprised but intending to pick them up, he slammed on the breaks and slid over to the curb next to them. He rolled down the window to speak, but Buffy beat him to it.

"There you guys are! Where have you been?" Buffy called out happily.

"Long story." James commented, climbing into the back seat of the car.

"The mayor's office." Willow piped up as she followed him.

"Okay, so not that long." James admitted from beside the redhead.

"Yeah, we got caught and were punished by being forced to listen to political talks." Xander joked as he piled into the back seat after the other two.

"So; where are going?" Willow asked as the car pulled out and back into the street proper.

"We have a ritual that might be able to kill the baddy." Buffy updated her friends. "But we need a pure silver knife. Giles doesn't have one in stock, so we're going to go find our own."

"Where? It isn't like there's a pawn shop that just happens to have a knife of pure silver." Xander asked.

Buffy threw a questioning look in Giles' direction. The Watcher coughed awkwardly. "I…may have neglected to pursue that particular course, but the odds were stacked against it."

"Alright. First we need to get someplace with a computer that isn't the library." Buffy told the group.

"What's wrong with the library?" Willow posed the question.

"If you can't find a silver knife for sale in a pawnshop, then we're going to need a more private place to plan a heist." Buffy laid out her intent to the crew.

"Um, a heist? As in, a planned robbery of a company?" James objected. "Isn't that kind of, I don't know, illegal?!"

"Yeah." Buffy told him. "But it might be the only way to kill this demon."

"Fine." James capitulated. "But is there any chance we can return the knife after we're done with it?"

"I wasn't planning on keeping it." Buffy said with a shrug.

"Besides, it would be kind of dangerous to keep it." Willow spoke up. "After all, if the police think one of us might have done it, then they could check our 'known associates' houses. And if they do that, they'll find it and arrest all of us!"

"Which is why we aren't doing that. Right, Buffy?" Xander reassured his old friend.

"Yeah, relax Wills. We aren't criminals." Buffy agreed. "Well, technically we will be for this, but you know what I mean, right?"

"So; let's get down to the actual planning here."

"I can't believe we're doing this _now!_" Buffy grumbled at her two trusted companions. It was just starting to get dark! Not to mention the cramped space in the back of the van that James had borrowed from some senior musician he knew from the local performing arts center wasn't doing her normally impatient disposition any favors.

"Sure; let's come back in two days. You know they give thieves an extra thirty-second head start on weekends." Xander joked as he slipped on a mask.

Buffy looked incredulously at the third, tallest of the bandits. "Really, Giles? I said no ski masks!"

The Watcher shrugged. "I'm sorry, Buffy, but I was under pressure. I, well…panicked."

"'Panicked?' Giles, it's choosing a mask! It's not life or death!" Buffy ridiculed.

"Hey, let the G-Man off the hook! It isn't like he has a collection of Halloween masks leftover from a childhood like we do." Xander sort of defended the older man.

"Well…" Giles began, polishing his glasses. "These were, in fact, left over from my…youth."

"Woah! You were young once!" Buffy gibed gently. "This I have to hear."

Giles opened his mouth to answer, but thought better of it. Given his past, he wasn't sure how they would react, and the thought of being shunned by any of the children he'd become so fond of was devastating. Instead… "I would, ah, rather not talk about it." He awkwardly deflected.

"Right; we should probably focus on the law-breaking here." Xander pointed out.

"For once, he's right." Buffy agreed, ignoring Xander's indignant protest. "Thieving time."

She turned around to face the back of the driver's seat. "I didn't know you had your license, James."

The teen in question nodded from the driver's seat. "Yeah; got it last year. If I'm gonna get a job soon, then I need to be able to drive myself around, right?"

"Yeah, I guess." Buffy nodded, and then turned to the smaller figure in the passenger seat. "You ready to go, Wills?"

The redhead nodded. "Yeah. I got the gallery's personal network pulled up; I should be able to take the cameras down in less than a half an hour." She smiled proudly. "Thanks for letting me use this laptop, James. You must be rich!"

"Well…not so much anymore." James shrugged off the comment. "But it isn't actually mine anyways. It's my dad's. He used to work for a computer company. When he left, they gave him a nice laptop."

"Oh, cool!" Willow bounced in her seat a little bit.

James frowned. "Yeah, I guess."

Willow noticed the drop in James' attitude. She opened her mouth to ask if he was okay, but was cut off when Buffy called to her from the back of the van. "Alright Wills; get hacking! We need to do this quick." Her voice was slightly muffled, Willow assumed from the mask she had over her face.

"Okay!" The hacker chirped cheerfully. "Just give me a little bit."

The wait was tense, but short. The sound of computer keys clacking echoed around the silent van for several minutes before Willow announced that she was done, and the cameras were down.

"Good job. Let's go!" Buffy ordered as she clambered out of the back of the van, Giles and Xander close behind.

"Remember; use the call-signs while we're actually in the building." Xander reminded the other two.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "You just want us to call you Nighthawk."

"Sorry if I want to sound awesome for once in my life!" Xander retorted.

"Children." Giles mediated sternly. "Focus on the job at hand."

"Right." Buffy nodded, refocusing.

She headed to the front door and gently pushed on it-and frowned slightly when it fell open. "That's weird. It should be locked…" She muttered to herself. Shrugging internally, she turned to the others. "Door's open."

"Right." Giles frowned in mild confusion, but shook his head to clear himself of doubts. "Let us continue."

The inside of the art gallery was fairly small. It consisted of four different rooms, each accessible from the main foyer.

"Okay. So…we split up and take a room, meet back here after to check the last room?" Buffy suggested.

The other two glanced at each other. "Sure." Xander shrugged in agreement.

"Are you sure that's wise? If the door was unlocked, we may not be the only ones in here." Giles counseled.

"True, but we need to get this done fast, before someone starts getting suspicious about the cameras." Buffy pointed.

Giles nodded. "Very well. We shall split up. But, if something supernatural occurs, don't hesitate to call for help from the rest of us." He advised both of the other two. They nodded. "Especially you, Xander. Err…Nighthawk."

The average teen grimaced, but nodded obediently anyway. He hated not being able to really help fight, but at least he wasn't alone in that boat. Willow couldn't really do much to help other than her computers and research, and now James was in almost the exact same situation that Xander was. Except he had managed to get them the van…He frowned a little at the thought. _So he's actually a little more useful than me._ He was not pleased by the thought.

"So; I'll take the first one on the right, you take the one straight ahead, and Nighthawk takes the one on the left. If nobody finds it, we come back here and all go for the second one on the right. Right?" Buffy laid out the plan.

"That is correct." Giles agreed nodding. "We can reconvene in this foyer."

Xander gave the librarian an irritated look. "You know, sometimes I swear you talk like that just to make me feel like an idiot. Either that, or to show off how British you are." The masks covered most of their faces, but Xander didn't need to see Giles' face to know the expression being shot his way. The mouth slit in his own mask spread out in an impish grin at the thought, before he scampered over to the room he'd been assigned to check.

"Good luck." Giles nodded at his Slayer before turning and striding across the foyer to his own room. Left alone, Buffy saw no reason to delay, and entered her own section of the art gallery.

She frowned as she realized that, despite her mother owning the place, she had never actually been there before. A small spark of guilt flared up in her chest, but she pushed it aside. _Feel bad later. Slayer stuff now._

The sun was well into setting now, and shadows cloaked the corners and aisles of the room. Yet despite the gloom and the swiftly-vanishing protective fire that was solar light streaming in through the windows, Buffy couldn't help but notice how well decorated the room. Her Slayer sight could pierce the darkness, allowing her to see the tasteful curtains to either side of the windows, and the dark, neatly varnished wood of some of the display stands.

Buffy strode along the edges of the square room, and, seeing no sign of the knife, began to work her way in. The room was built like a maze, with walls leading the viewer into the middle. Buffy wasn't entirely sure of the purpose of the design, but it at least made for easy placement of whatever her mom wanted to have people look at. Idly she wondered if the other rooms were like this too, or if this room was unique.

Her musings were broken by a shattering up ahead. Concerned about her mothers' gallery (ignoring for the moment that she herself was there to steal from it) she broke into a run, intending to investigate. When she rounded the next corner, she saw a man standing next to a formerly glass-covered alcove that was used to store the displays. The glass was all over the floor, and the man-who she saw now was wearing a security guard's uniform-had his fist inside the alcove, clearly having punched through the glass. As she watched, he reached down and deftly plucked something from the small platform that it had been resting on. Buffy peered closer, trying to see the object in his grasp, but all she got was a metallic, silver glimmer as it was enveloped by the man's hand.

The man turned to leave and saw Buffy standing in the doorway. He paused, staring at her with undisguised hatred.

The look in the man's eyes made her feel the need to shiver a little-yet was also familiar. She'd seen that look on the faces of many of the supernatural creatures she'd fought before, but none so much as the vampires.

"Why don't you put that back? This gallery only has enough room for one thief tonight." Buffy ordered the man.

The sound he made could be best described as a growl as words ground their way out of his throat. "I don't think so…Slayer."

Buffy frowned in surprise. The man had her full attention now, and all of her Slayer senses were working at maximum capacity as adrenaline began to flow through her system. And now that she was paying attention to her senses, her Slaydar was telling her the man was _something_ bad.

Sure enough, his face began to contort as the demon inside showed its' 'feeding face.' The brow raised, and the face squeezed together, leaving the nose bulging slightly in a parody of a cat's face.

Buffy hid any fear with a sarcastic sigh. "Really? I don't exactly have time for you right now."

Without any more conversation the vampire charged her. She hadn't expected it, but Slayer speed and reflexes allowed her to get a shot off. Her foot crashed into her attacker's knee, followed by the disconcerting sound of his bones grinding together. Recovering swiftly, he pitched forward, knocking her to the ground with an audible crunch.

She hadn't expected that.

She slowly regained her feet, warily watching her foe who was doing the same.

"Come on. Let's see what you've got." Buffy challenged flippantly, giving the universal 'come at me' gesture.

The vampire obliged. Instead of trying to use an attack to stop the vamp cold, she side-stepped the charging demon, turning swiftly and planting a boot in the small of its' back. Shoving, she sent the vampire stumbling, and quickly regained her own feet to get ready for her opponents' next move.

That was when her senses flared up, warning her that there was a baddy behind her. Before she could move, she felt an arm dart into her personal space and cinch around her neck.

"Hello." The other vampire whispered in her ear, breath tinged with the odor of old blood. He pulled on her neck a little, just enough to make her gasp for air for a few seconds.

In front of her, the other vampire was turning around, ready to attack again.

Buffy, seeing an opening, tensed to prepare to use a judo throw to get the enemy behind her off of her back and in front of her. Just before she performed it, however, the vampire behind her delivered a sharp kick to the back of her left knee, forcing it to bend. Buffy, unprepared, lost her balance, and choked for a second as the only thing keeping her upright was the grip of the vampire behind her. She glanced at the first vampire to see that he was moving close, slow and methodical this time, not charging around.

This was going to be more difficult than she first thought.


	5. Ritual

_Still don't own the Buffyverse, with the exception of my OC and my villain. Reviews would still be nice, and still thank you to the Beast of Burton for proof-reading for all of this, even though I forgot to mention that the last few times. _

_Thanks to all who followed also. Your support means a lot to me!_

Buff glanced around the room, looking for a weapon. The hold she was in wasn't the biggest problem at the moment; she was confident she could get out of it, except for the slight uneasiness her captor's previous success in restraining her instilled.

The other vampire came at her much more slowly now that she was immobile. The part of Buffy's brain that wasn't occupied by survival could appreciate the irony, given that him charging had allowed her to be more effective while she herself could move.

Vamp One approached her, still holding whatever it was he'd taken from the display in his right hand. The thought that he was stealing from her mom flashed through Buffy's brain, giving rise to a small flood of indignation. Ignoring again, naturally, that stealing from her mom's gallery was the entire reason Buffy was here right now.

"How about this. You put the thing back," she nodded at the vamp's clenched hand. "I don't have to kill you, and we both just leave. What do you say?" She asked cheerily, trying to distract both vampires from the hand that was reaching toward her lower back, in search of the stake she usually kept concealed there.

"Sorry. I'm thinking we've got the upper hand now." Vampire Two responded.

Buffy shrugged. "Your loss." Her hand jerked up the rest of the distance to her waist-band…and grasped only fabric. Internally cursing herself for leaving her weapons in her normal clothes, she decided to change tactics. Lifting a foot, she brought it down on the left foot of the enemy behind her. There was a sound remarkably similar to Vampire One's leg earlier as her heel ground into the top of Vampire Two's arch. He cried out in pain and recoiled, setting her loose. With a quick spin, Buffy delivered a kick to his chest that sent him sprawling into a wall. She remembered Vampire One just in time to hear his grunt of effort. From the sound of it, he was charging yet again, so Buffy simply did what came naturally. This time, it was to duck. As her foe tripped over her and began to fall, she swiftly placed her right hand on his lower abdomen and her left on his upper chest. With a mighty push from her right, she flipped the unfortunate vampire over her, sending him flying only to land heavily on the floor in front of her.

"Well. That wasn't too bad." She commented as she stood tall above her conquered foe. She began scanning the area for a piece of wood to stake him-and Vampire Two's fist caught her in the cheek, sending her sprawling to the floor.

"Right. Forgot about you." She muttered as she rolled to her feet and into a combat ready stance.

The two simply watched each other, neither intending to be the first to move. A shifting in the background caught Buffy's eye. She quickly recognized that Vampire One was getting to his feet again. Noticing that his opponent was distracted, Vampire Two lunged.

The Slayer reflexes earned their keep, as Buffy landed a solid blow to Two's face, sending him reeling off course.

Instead of simply coming at her, her two enemies regrouped and shared a glance. Both nodded, and separated to circle around her in counter directions.

Trying to keep an eye on both was impossible-Buffy knew that. Her only choice was to find a way to break the circle-and hopefully get a weapon. As her eyes tried to track both vampires, a gleam caught her eye. Risking an attack, Buffy's eyes locked onto that gleam-and found that the varnish on a wooden stand holding some display or another gleamed in the moonlight streaming in through the window.

"Well alright." Buffy muttered to herself. Doing another quick check to make sure neither Tweedle-Dee or Dum had made a move toward her, she was reassured that they weren't attacking yet. Deciding to take advantage of that, she rushed forward into the open spot the two had left as they circled. She could hear both vampires break formation and start running after her, feet hitting the ground heavily.

Suddenly, she only registered one set of steps behind her. Instinct taking over, she turned her body and went into a slide. Everything seemed to slow down as she slid toward the wall, one of the vamps edging into her field of view above her, having taken a flying leap when she stopped hearing his steps. Modifying her leg's position, she slid into the leg of the display stand with enough force to snap it. Kicking up, she flipped the improvised stake into the air, catching it as she slid into the wall. Vampire Two reached the wall just as she did, prompting her to rocket to her feet, sharp piece of wood outstretched and heading for the vampire's heart.

Vampire Two, seeing her coming, used his demonic strength to punch holds into the wall. He obtained enough purchase to twist mostly out of the way of Buffy's strike, so instead of the improvised stake piercing his heart, it was buried in the left side of his lower abdomen.

"Damn it." Buffy cursed. "What a waste of a completely awesome move." The vampire dropped down in front of her as she spoke, landing with a growl in a menacing, open-arm pose.

Buffy looked at him for a few seconds, just staring. "Wow. That was a great idea, huh?" Her tone was more barbed than her sarcastic words.

"Wha-" Vampire Two didn't get to finish, before Buffy's fist darted into the gap his open arms had left and buried the sharp end of the stand leg in his heart. The shock was frozen on his face for the last few seconds of his un-life before he exploded into dust.

Buffy casually turned to Vampire One. "That's what it means to be the Slayer, by the way. Normally, I wouldn't give this offer, but I'm really in a hurry and not here for you. So how about you just leave, and I can come find and stake you later, okay?" She offered, her casual manner belying her impatience.

The vampire opened his mouth to respond…but then the alarms started going off.

"Oh damn it." Buffy cursed a second time tonight as the vampire took off. Turning, she raced quickly through the rest of the room, searching for the knife as quickly as she could while still being thorough.

"Well; here's hoping none of the others had to fight any vamps." Buffy said to herself when she reached the end of the room empty handed. She could hear security guards flooding into the room from the entrance. Or at least she figured they were security guards; she could hear three different voices calling out in official sounding jargon. It made them seem like they were trying to be actual cops to her.

She glanced around for an exit besides the entrance she'd used-and found one on the right side of the room, completely undisturbed by the security personnel.

She silently added incompetent to her mental estimation as she left the room.

"Alright! Anybody get the knife?" Buffy asked once the excitement had died down. The three bandits had made it back to the van with few problems, and barring a close shave with a police car on their way out of that side of town, had made it out of their criminal caper with no other incident.

Smiling like the cat burglar who stole the golden canary statue, Xander opened his gloved fist to reveal a medieval-looking silver dagger. "Lucked onto it near the end. It was in a glass case which wasn't easy to get it out of, but I solved the puzzle with my usual subtle brilliance."

Buffy didn't even have to give Giles the usual questioning look. "He shattered the display with a rock." The disapproval was evident in the Watcher's tone and manner, as Giles rubbed his eyes with exasperation.

"Hey, whatever works." Xander replied with a shrug.

"Sorry Giles, but I have to go with Xander on this one." Buffy told him, tone only vaguely apologetic.

"Well, I suppose he did obtain our goal." The Watcher admitted reluctantly.

"Right!" Buffy nodded decisively. "Good work, Xand."

"It was a good idea, too." Xander continued his story. "Until all the alarms started going off."

"That was you?" Buffy asked. "I thought the alarms just had a serious delay after a vamp broke open a display in my room."

The other two heads in the back swiveled to face her, near-identical looks of concern on their faces. Between Xander and Giles, Buffy could see Willow's pale face peering around the passenger seat into the back. And it looked like James had cocked his head so he could listen while keeping his eyes on the road.

"There was a vampire there?" Giles asked in slight disbelief.

"Well vampires, as in plural." Buffy responded. Giles face turned to the disapproving stare he'd perfected on her. "Buffy, we agreed to call for help if we needed it." He reprimanded.

"But that's the thing, Giles; I didn't need it. Everything was under control." Buffy assured her Watcher.

Giles sighed. "Very well." He settled back into his seat in the back of the van, and almost instantly straightened up again. "Wait; what was that vampire doing destroying a display case?" He queried, eyes intense.

Buffy blinked surprised. "Uh, he stole something from the gallery. No biggie." Buffy waved away the incident, not very concerned about a theft from an art gallery.

"I am afraid I may have to argue that point, Buffy." Giles contradicted. "Vampires rarely steal material objects for something as simple as monetary gain; most undead are beyond needing it. So I must ask you; what was stolen from the gallery?"

Buffy frowned, trying to remember. "Well, to tell you the truth, I never actually saw it. All I saw was a flash of silver in the vamp's hand."

"Are you absolutely sure? This could be important-vital, even!" Giles pressed for any possible other memories Buffy could recall.

"Um, Giles? I get what you're saying, but shouldn't we focus on killing Laralek before we try to figure out whatever this is?" Willow timidly volunteered.

Giles blinked in surprise, and his body language relaxed. "Of course. You are correct, Willow; I'm sorry."

"It's okay." She assured him, turning her attention up front.

Silence reigned for several moments in the van.

"Hey, guys? Nobody ever told me where to go, and I kind of need that to be the getaway driver." James informed them with a small dose of sarcasm, breaking the quiet.

"That would be, ah, my cue, I suppose." Giles shifted onto his knees, and made his way over to stop just behind the middle of the front seat. "You take the right here, go two blocks, and then turn left." He began giving the newest recruit directions to his apartment.

"I have almost everything set up here for the ritual we need to use." Giles informed them as they all piled into his apartment. "We just needed the knife, and now that we have it, we can begin."

"Uh, Giles? How long is this going to take? Because if it's much longer, my mother will kill me for being out so late." Buffy inquired, glancing uncomprehendingly at the analog clock on the wall.

"This should not take too long, no." Giles reassured his protégé as he bustled further into his apartment. "Come now, all of you. Take up places around the circle, here." He gestured to the four corners of the room. As the four younger people walked single-file into the living room of Giles' apartment, they each got a good look at the sigil on the floor. It was a large circle inside a larger circle, with the space in between the two bands filled with arcane symbols.

James raised an eyebrow as he caught a glance. "Celtic knotwork?" He asked skeptically.

"Well, yes. This circle is not used solely for the spell we are about to perform; it's very old, and has gathered influence from many cultures around the world, all of which have incorporated symbols here." The librarian gestured at the area of floor between the two bands of the circle. "All of these symbols serve to make it stronger. As such, yes, you can see Druidic knots of various kinds as part of the circle."

"A feather?" Xander asked disbelievingly as he pointed to one particular symbol. "What does a feather represent, fried chicken?"

Willow leaned over to examine the spell. "I think that's supposed to be the symbol of the Egyptian goddess Ma'at." She spoke tentatively, not entirely sure.

Her fellow students in the room looked at her in disbelief.

"I read a book on Egyptian mythology…" Willow stated defensively, shrinking back a little.

"Ah, yes, very good Willow. What no public book will explain, however, is how Ma'at relates to this particular ritual. Are you aware of what Ma'at represents?" Giles inquired.

"Umm…doesn't she organize what gods and mortals do? Or something like that?" Willow answered, reaching far back into the mists of half-remembered facts.

"That is indeed among her provinces." Giles agreed. "However, Ma'at relates to this spell because she is a goddess of, among many other things, truth. And, since our foe is made of the essence of deceit, and we need a weapon to destroy him…"

"Then we use a god who represents the truth to help kill it." Xander finished.

"Yes, that is correct, Xander." Giles congratulated the teen as he rose to his feet again. "Although the technical term is to 'invoke', not to 'use' a god."

"Why didn't you make your cover being a teacher, Giles?" James inquired of the older man. "Seems like you'd really have loved that."

"Because grading papers is clearly what a Watcher needs to be doing all day." Giles retorted, his British accent somehow reinforcing the sarcasm. However, he gave James a smile, so that the youth wouldn't be offended.

"So; we ready to get started? Kind of on a time limit here." Buffy reminded everybody.

"Oh, yes, of course. Um, Buffy, you sit there," he pointed to the western-most edge of the circle as he did so. He subsequently directed Xander to the South, Willow to the East, and James to the North. Giles himself took the silver dagger, and sat in the center of the circle.

"Is there anything we need to do?" Willow inquired timidly before Giles officially began the spell.

"Simply focus on the dagger, and…well…_push_ your desire for Laralek's death into it. That should be enough." Giles responded. "Any other questions before we begin?" He asked, scanning the four youths he had found himself working with.

All of them shook their heads.

"Then we shall start." Giles announced, before gingerly placing the dagger in the dead center of the circle directly in front of him.

Most of the ritual was comprised of complete gibberish from James' point of view. Giles would start chanting in a very old-sounding language, keep going for several minutes, and then _switch _languages. Even if James could understand all of the languages Giles was speaking he would have found it hard to keep up. As it was, all he could pick out was the occasional familiar-sounding word, like 'veritas' when Giles was doing a section in Latin. The only hint James had as to why Giles was switching languages was that whenever he began an invocation in yet another language, a symbol in the circle would begin to give off a steady glow of a seemingly random color. The Celtic knots James had noticed when he first entered gave off a forest green glow, and the feather of Ma'at Willow commented on emitted a bright gold hue. At first they would flare up, the color bursting into and filling the room, but about halfway through the section of the ritual in their language, the symbols would fade back to a steady glow, lighting only a few inches around and above each symbol.

As James was observing, Giles switched into what James was pretty sure was Spanish. The only word he really caught was 'punal', and the symbol of the winged snake that James was later told was in an Aztec style began to glow a soothing blue. As it did, James looked around and realized that all of the symbols were glowing now.

Giles switched back to Latin, and as he began speaking this time, James felt a rush of other-worldly power flow into him. Seeing Xander's expression, and what he could glimpse of Buffy and Willow's out of the corner of his eye, he could tell that they were experiencing the same feeling. Suddenly remembering what Giles had said, James closed his eyes and focused. Finding his desire to kill the demon Laralek, he mentally used it to ball up the mystical energies, and, imagining he had his arm cocked back to throw a baseball, he built up his will-power, and _launched._ He opened his eyes, and saw that just when his ball of magic and intent should have hit the dagger, a faint white glow appeared around it. It wasn't even as strong as a torch, and James had to rub his eyes and double-check to make sure he wasn't imagining it, but it was definitely there.

He saw Willow's expression relax, and her own eyes slowly opened-and the glow on the dagger became brighter. Likewise, a few seconds later, when Buffy and then Xander opened their own eyes, the light around the dagger increased in magnitude for both.

Giles gently picked the dagger up, one hand on each end, and slowly raised it into the air. The volume and fervor with which the Watcher pronounced the Latin incantation increased, until he was practically yelling up to the gods themselves. As he did so, the glow around the dagger steadily began to brighten again, and the light began to pulse with the rise and fall of Giles' voice. The light gradually brightened until it became blinding, a blazing torch of pure white light in the middle of the dark night.

Suddenly, the light seemed to reach its limit, and with an almost audible shattering sound, suddenly it was over. The light swiftly shrank back into the dagger, becoming once more the faint, white glow sheathing it, flowing over and around its intricate designs. Giles seemingly collapsed, hunching over and letting the dagger fall to the ground.

Silence reigned for several moments.

"That was, ah, not exactly what I expected." Giles admitted as he straightened up, looking around the circle.  
"That was…intense." Buffy agreed as she sat back.

"Wow! That was what magic feels like when you do it!?" Willow exclaimed in delighted incredulity.

"Um, yes." Giles nodded. "But remember; though magic feels pleasant, it is a powerful tool that is dangerous if misused." He admonished her.

Willow completely ignored his warning. "Woah…" She simply basked in the memory.

"So…did it work?" Xander asked the most pertinent question.

"Yes, it appeared the ritual was quite successful." Giles informed him as he stood up. "Now, it is quite late, as Buffy mentioned earlier, and I'd hate to get any of you in trouble with your parents."

Xander and Buffy both nodded in fervent agreement, for different reasons.

"Not a problem." James and Willow chorused simultaneously.

Giles frowned at them. "Really? Are you sure?"

They both nodded, a little uncomfortably.

"Very well. At least let me give you a ride home." The librarian looked a little perturbed at the thought of the Rosenburg and McAnon parents not having a problem with their children being out so late. If they were his children…!

"Well, actually, I need to get the van back to its owner. I can drop Willow off at her house on the way." James told him.

"Ah; I see." Giles nodded. "Alright then. We can probably take care of Laralek tomorrow…" He trailed off tiredly.

It seemed to be a particularly dark night out, Willow noticed as the van's headlights lit up the road in front of them. The dash board lights gave off just enough light to make her seem even more pale than usual, she knew; and, glancing over to her left, she could see that James hadn't escaped the effect either. Her eyes roamed over his face, committing to memory the angular yet friendly face of her old friend and new ally.

James caught Willow looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and his heart gave a little jump. Maybe she found him interesting, intriguing like he found her?

Trying to quash his hopes, he reminded himself that she was, at this point, a co-worker; not a potential paramour.

Yet still, he couldn't help but feel those hopes rising in his chest.

Sighing to himself, he directed his attention back to the road. It wouldn't do to kill Willow via car crash because he was daydreaming about going out with her!

Yet, he could see her still looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Some part of his brain was yelling at him, sternly reminding him that sitting in silence was not a viable way to woo a girl. _Come on, man! Make conversation!_ He told himself.

Willow jumped a little in surprise when James cleared his throat. "So; is this, um, pretty much an average night for Buffy and her apprentice slayers?" He inquired, a small bit of nervousness entering his voice. He was, after all, alone with his crush, and didn't want to mess things up.

"Uh, well, not really. Usually, we, uh, don't steal things, 'cause, you know, stealing is bad, and we're the good guys. Usually we just look in Giles books, 'cause, y'know, he's the Book Guy, and the Research Guy, and the Watcher, and we find what we're fighting, and Buffy goes out and kills it." Willow rambled. "Or, there was this one time where it was a witch, and instead of killing her, we just tried to destroy her grimoire, because that breaks all of their spells, you know. Only, we didn't get to destroy her book, so Buffy just ended up reflecting a nasty spell back at her, and she just sort of went up in smoke."

James nodded his head slowly, eyes still fixed on the road. "Well alright then. Sounds like you guys' lives are certainly fraught with peril." He took advantage of a stop-light to look directly at his passenger. "Sounds like you could use another hand."

It took Willow a second to understand what James was really saying. He was asking if it would be all right if he joined them.

"Well, if you wanted to help, I don't think Buffy would have too much of a problem with it." Willow suggested weakly. She felt a mixture of relief and apprehension when a grim smile blossomed across James' features. She still hadn't forgotten about the way Owen had behaved when he learned about monsters and the like being real, and fervently hoped James wasn't going to be the same.

"But you can't just go and rush into a fight, okay?" Willow added on, concern evident in her voice. "I mean, I get that it can be an adrenaline rush, but you need to be smart about it."

James shot her an 'are you crazy' look before being forced to return his eyes to the road. "You're kidding, right? I mean, okay, yeah, it's an adrenaline rush. But I already tried fighting one of these things, remember? I'm not planning on getting involved in a fight unless someone _really_ needs my help." He reassured her.

"Oh; that's good." Willow nodded to reinforce her statement. "I mean, there was this one time, Buffy went out with a guy, and he got all excited about it because it was dangerous."

"What happened to him?" James asked.

Willow shrugged. "Last time I saw him, he was alive, at least. He might be dead now though."

James nodded his head. "Alright then. Particularly cheerful outlook you've got there, Willow."

Her expression grew sad. "Well, it's really just being realistic, even if I don't like it."

James nodded. "I see."

Silence filled the van.

"So, on a happier topic; do you, um, happen to, uh, have a boyfriend, by any chance?" He broke the silence.

Willow looked skeptical. "Who, me? No. I haven't had a boyfriend since an evil demon who I accidentally put on the internet tried to seduce me."

James slammed on the breaks, and shot her an incredulous look. "The hell?!" His voice rose a little.

Willow nodded repeatedly. "It happened." Then, seeing James' expression, she elaborated a little. "Well, he had a robot body made so he could live in it."

James shook his head disbelievingly. "That…really didn't help if you're trying to make the story believable."

"Oh. Well, okay, I guess I can see where you wouldn't believe that." Willow admitted.

"No, I believe you; I'm just pointing out that if I hadn't had a demon come after me with the intent of biting my head off for dinner last night, I probably wouldn't be so accepting of your story." He explained.

Willow nodded again. "Okay."

Another brief silence. "So, uh; any guys you're, um, interested in?" He didn't exactly expect her to say she was interested in him, but he was at least hoping she answered in the negative.

"Yeah." Her expression took on a dreamy caste to it. "Xander."

James felt a surge of jealousy well up in his chest, but he fought it back down. It was swiftly replaced by irritation with the boy in question; after all, it was clear, even to James, that Xander didn't see Willow that way. And it was likely-in James' point of view-that it hurt Willow that Xander couldn't see how she felt; she didn't exactly show it, but it was at least a pretty good guess, given the emotions involved.

James suddenly felt a powerful urge to deck Xander the next time he saw him.

"So, where to from here?" James asked his passenger.

"Oh, you take a left, and then go down for two blocks, and…" Willow began directing him to her house.

It wasn't long before they arrived at her house, and she climbed down out of the car. "Thanks for the ride, James!" She chirped cheerfully.

"No problem." He gave her a half-salute, and pushed the van into reverse.

It really didn't take long at all for him to get the van back to its owner, and walk the three houses down to his own residence.

He crept into his house, knowing full well that his dad probably wasn't asleep. His dad hardly ever seemed to sleep anymore; he just sat up, blankly watching T.V. or staring into space all the time. It was either that or…

James listened carefully, and sure enough, he could hear his father sobbing in the room upstairs that used to be his parents' joint room.

As James snuck upstairs to his own room, he could feel the usual shadow of sadness fall over his heart. It came whenever he entered the house, and left when he did. It had been there since his dad had started losing his ability to function effectively, about a week after his mother had died.

He entered his room and began to change for bed, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about his mother and the bizarre, stupid accident that had caused her to die, in pain and alone.

_Barbecue fork accident?_ James thought, feeling a surge of helpless anger at the police detective that had issued the stupid, stupid, senseless, impossible explanation. _What a stupid way to die._ He thought bitterly as he fell asleep, his fathers' sobs beating against his ears like waves.


	6. As Truth Is My Sword

_Insert Standard Disclaimer Here. _

_Woohoow! Just the epilogue left! We're almost done here!_

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"Okay. We've got everything we need to slay a demon." Buffy began, without preamble, the next morning in the library before school. "Except one thing." She continued, pivoting to face Giles, a look of concentration upon her face. That look quickly shifted to irritation. "We need the damn demon!" She finished exasperatedly, throwing her hands into the air to emphasize her point.

"Well, according to my research, Laralek tends to attack groups that have performed major deceptions. There is something about the existence of that deceit in the brains and on the tongues of the perpetrators that attracts him. So, all we need to discover, is simply which group the demon is targeting." Giles explained.

Xander gave a wry chuckle. "Why not the Cordettes? They do more lying to peoples' faces and backstabbing their victims than the entire Skrull invasion put together. Demon Lie-guy gets his meal, we don't have to deal with Harmony and Aura and all the rest. Sounds like a win-win to me."

James shook his head. "While Cordelia's pack of female canines lie and backstab more than the Borgia family did, I don't think they're the target. I mean, think; there hasn't been a single girl killed by this guy."

"He's got a point, Xander." Willow agreed with a sigh. "It can't be them."

Buffy let out a short, humorless laugh. "What about _us_? I mean, considering all of the lying we do about what really goes on in this town, I wouldn't be surprised if he thought we looked like a gourmet meal."

"It isn't us, Buffy. Same reason it can't be the Cordettes; the only one of us that was attacked was James, and that was before he even came to a meeting on purpose." Xander refuted.

Something clicked in Willow's mind. "Oh, eureka! I think I know!" She exclaimed.

"Well? Don't keep us in suspense, Willow." James encouraged.

"Okay! Well, think about it; where did we find the first body?" Willow asked.

"The trap door in the auditorium." James promptly responded.

"Right!" She smiled brightly at him before turning to Buffy. "And Laralek attacked you guys when you took James home right?"

Buffy nodded. "Yeah; and he asked me to let him have his lunch. I figured he meant James." She offered.

"Exactly." Willow agreed. Turning back to James, she asked, "And didn't you say you knew Morgue-Guy?"

"Yeah; Mike Adams." James confirmed.

Giles nodded as he began to see where Willow was going. "And where did you meet Michael?" The Watcher asked.

"The community center during a play, just like-" Understanding dawned on James. "Just like Terry." James did a double-take as he processed the information. "Wait, are you saying Laralek's after the drama department? 'Cause that doesn't make any sense. Most of the guys in it are as honest as can be."

"Well, the truth is that it doesn't necessarily matter how honest an individual is." Giles broke in. "Laralek tends to be drawn to groups who deceive, not individuals."

"Groups who deceive?" James looked taken aback. "But we're naught but humble actors; deception isn't in our nature." He affected the manner of a wounded manager as he said so.

Which made Xander, in turn, realize something. "But it kind of is." He refuted.

All heads swiveled toward him. Suddenly at the center of attention, Xander seemed to grow even more certain.

The boy lived on attention, Buffy was certain.

"Well, isn't a play just an accepted lie?" Xander began. "I mean, you're telling the audience that you're someone you're not, doing something you're only pretending to do. Isn't that basically lying, even if the audience likes it?"

"But the audience knows that it isn't true. It's not really a lie." James protested feebly, feeling the need to defend his friends, even if there wasn't really a way to do so, or a point in it.

"So? I can tell Wills I'm a woman, even though she knows I'm a guy. It's still a lie, isn't it?" Xander challenged.

Giles nodded. "Well-reasoned, Xander. I believe you may have found the answer." Xander basked momentarily in the short-lived proud smile Giles gave him. It made him feel like there was a little more of him to _be_ proud of.

"Okay. So, I go to the fundraiser practice, and when Laralek shows up, I shish-kebab him." Buffy shrugged cockily. "Nothing to it."

"I don't think so." James broke in. Buffy shot him an irritated glare-she didn't like having her skills questioned. James barreled through the disapproving look, responding far better to the other three questioning looks in the room. "Remember the whole hypnotic voice thing? Once he started talking, you were helpless."

Buffy frowned at him. "Well, do you have a better idea?" She challenged.

Before James could respond, Willow announced timidly, "I do."

All heads turned to look at her.

"The Odyssey." She said by way of explanation. Understanding blossomed across Giles' and James' features, but Xander and Buffy both still looked perplexed.

"The sirens?" James clarified and Willow nodded. Giles grinned. "Yes, that should work. Of course, there would have to be enough for everyone, just in case. We don't want Laralek taking control of any one of us." The Brit agreed.

"Okay, I swear I'm going to pick up a book after this, but for now, can someone please explain what you guys are talking about?" Xander asked exasperatedly. Buffy agreed, nodding fervently.

Giles took over the spot light. "Well, the Greek tale of the Odyssey tells the story of one man-Odysseus- and his journey through a series of monster-infested islands. One of the stories had Odysseus sailing past the island of the sirens. Their song was supposed to be so compelling that it would fill any man with the desire to follow it to its' source, barring all other distractions. Including self-preservation. However, there was a legend that much wisdom could be gained from the sirens' song, if one could survive listening. Odysseus desired to learn what wisdom the song held, but he did not want to drown, like the other men who attempted to reach the song did. Which is perfectly understandable, to be frank. So, he had his crew tie him to the mast so that he could not guide the ship." Noting both of the less literate of the Scoobies' faces rapidly becoming blank and bored, Giles quickly wrapped up the tale. "And to ensure that his crewmen could neither hear his cries to be set free nor the siren song itself, he had his crew fill their ears with candle wax prior to the attempt."

Buffy frowned. "So you want me to stuff wax in my ears?" Her tone was incredulous.

"Well, it would certainly increase your chances of surviving the battle." Giles stated as a way of explanation.

"Alright, fine." Buffy acquiesced at her Watcher's commentary. "If it'll help."

"It will." Giles assured her confidently. "And if by some chance it fails to protect you, then one of us should be able to, ah, break the spell."

"You guys are going to be fighting him too?" Buffy asked. "Isn't the point of having a Slayer so that I'm the one who, you know, slays the baddies, instead of you guys throwing yourself into danger? I mean, what if someone gets hurt?" The concern in her voice touched Giles' heart.

"You will still be our, ah, 'big gun', is how you would say it, isn't it?" Giles reassured her. "We are simply there as support, to aid you in extricating yourself should your situation prove untenable."

Buffy nodded dumbly, eyes glazing over slightly at the big words. Willow noticed and offered an explanation. "We're just going to be there in case you get into too big of trouble."

"Right; got it." Buffy nodded confidently. Then her confidence faltered momentarily as she considered. "So, what's the plan? What are you guys going to be doing?"

"We shall find other ways to prepare, I assure you. I myself happen to know a spell or two that may be of use in restraining Laralek during the fight, but I'm afraid that that may be the extent of my usefulness in the actual combat bit." Giles explained to his charge.

"Alright; what about the rest of you?" Buffy asked.

James shrugged. "I can be your page boy. Fetch your dagger when you lose it, and shout encouraging words."

Xander feigned enthusiasm as his hand shot into the air. "I can shout encouragement to him _while_ he's fetching your dagger."

Everyone in the room let out various forms of small chuckles and grins.

Xander felt his heart give a little jump at Buffy's radiant smile.

"Thanks, Xander; I'm sure I'll need the encouragement." James said with a chuckle.

"But seriously, I'm not sure what I can do to help." Xander shrugged.

Buffy waved at the weapons locker inside the cage. "Take your pick, Xand. Tools of destruction half off for the weekend; sale ends on Monday."

Xander raised an eyebrow. "Buff, I don't know how to use any of this. If I use a crossbow, I'd be more likely to shoot Giles than the bad guy. Let alone you, if you're fighting the nasties." He pointed out.

"I trust you, Xander." Buffy said simply.

"And there's a lot of time left before Laralek usually attacks people; m-maybe Giles could teach you how to shoot a crossbow. Right, Giles?" Willow suggested shyly.

Giles was already cleaning his glasses in anticipation of the stress and irritation. "I suppose I could try…perhaps give a few pointers."

James raised his hand. "Hey, can I take one of these classes? 'Cause I've never shot a crossbow before."

"Perhaps after we conquer our current foe, I can teach all of you how to properly handle a crossbow." Giles offered as he replaced his glasses.

"But we're still going to need a few pre-game tips." Xander commented.

"Yes, of course. I merely meant that after this encounter, I may be able to start training all of you more completely, as we hardly have the time at the moment." Giles explained.

"Okay; for our game plan, we need wax to stuff in our ears; we have the dagger; Giles can show you three how to at least fire a crossbow and hit the target; all we need to do now is to wait for Laralek to show up." Buffy summed up.

"Indeed. Now, if I am not mistaken, I believe you all may need to head to class soon." Giles suggested mere seconds before the school bell rang. "Ah; there we are." He commented, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder as he strode toward his office. "I will be doing some last-minute research on Laralek to see if I can find anything that may aid us while you four are in class."

After school found Buffy, Xander, Willow, and James purposefully striding toward the library to prepare for what they all hoped was to be their last encounter with Laralek.

Buffy took a deep breath, and turned to her friends and allies. "You guys ready?"

Each of them responded with a steady-if a little fearful-nod. More than a little, actually, in James' case, but that was understandable, the Slayer felt. After all, this was going to be his first full-on fight against a demon. If one didn't count the conflict outside the school two nights ago, which had been sort of a draw anyway. Or at least Buffy saw it that way; since Laralek left, she figured it would have been an even fight.

She pushed the library doors open, to see Giles sitting at the main table in the library with a pile of equipment. His head shot up, gaze distracted from whatever book he was reading by their entrance.

"Ah, good, you're here." The librarian commented, rising from his chair and striding toward them. "As it turns out, wax is somewhat difficult to obtain in a form that can be applied to the ear, so I settled for getting these." He held his palm out toward the students, revealing five pairs of ear plugs.

"These are probably going to be a lot more comfortable too." Buffy commented, a note of relief in her voice at not needing to stuff wax into her ears.

Giles shrugged. "I'm not certain, actually; if not heated too much, wax can be comfortable, actually."

Buffy looked at her Watcher incredulously. "Why do you know that?"

Giles ignored the question, turned back to the table, and began rummaging through the equipment. "Unfortunately, I'm not certain how much time we have, so lessons must be, ah, brief." Giles said as he turned around bearing a crossbow. "Now, watch closely." Giles held the crossbow like a rifle, peering down where the bolt would be on a loaded weapon, eyes watching the sight intently. "This is the way one should hold a crossbow. If a vampire or other enemy is not coming at you directly, take your time to line up your shot. A quick, unfocused shot is likely a wasted bolt, and a crossbow takes far too long to reload to risk it." He glanced over at the three ordinary teens. "Xander, James, Willow; are you paying attention?"

James and Willow nodded. Xander's head shot up, back to looking at Giles instead of all of the equipment Giles had on the table. "Uh, yeah; got it Giles. Look before you leap and all."

Giles eyed Xander suspiciously for a few seconds, before turning his attention to continuing his demonstration. "Yes, right. Well, when you are looking down the sights, be sure to take gravity into account-" Giles was interrupted by a loud bang as one of the library's double-doors swung wide open.

Giles peered around at the intruder, and hastily began trying to hide the crossbow in the pile of equipment on the desk. Hearing a cough, the librarian spun around, putting on a false smile as his eyes fell on the short, balding, ugly-tempered school principle.

"Mr. Snyder!" Giles' eyes were filled with undisguised shock, and barely disguised panic at the possibility that Snyder might have seen him showing students-in particular Buffy Summers, who Snyder was convinced was a trouble-maker-how to use a deadly weapon.

Snyder ignored Giles; instead, he only had eyes for three students in particular. "I thought I might find you hear." Snyder commented, disgust heavy in his tone. "You three, in my office. Now." He commanded, poking a short finger at James, Xander, and Willow. The three in question got up as he pointed to them, and began moving toward the door. Willow turned around and shot Buffy an apologetic look, before turning around and hurrying out of the door after the two guys.

Snyder shot an almost equally disgusted look at Giles, who merely responded by putting his false smile in place again. Giles paled as he noticed Snyder's eyes wander to the table. He paled even further when he saw the man's eyes lock onto something.

Moving with a purpose, Snyder strode over to the table and snatched up a piece of Buffy's Slaying equipment. He held it up so that Giles could see the stake's sharp end. "What is this, Mr. Giles?" Snyder asked menacingly.

The Brit opened his mouth to respond, but Snyder pre-empted him. "Because to me, it looks like a dangerous weapon was placed in your library. And I doubt that it was part of the staple library decorations." Snyder glanced around the sparsely decorated library to emphasize his point.

"A weapon? No way." Buffy waved Snyder's glare off as if it was ridiculous instead of menacing. "I just wanted to learn how to whittle, and Giles was teaching me the proper technique." She explained.

"I didn't know you could whittle, Mr. Giles." Snyder challenged, suspicious.

"Well, with all due respect, Mr. Snyder, it was hardly something one would put on a teaching application." Giles responded, taking his glasses off to polish them.

Something that was said finally percolated through the Emperor of Sunnydale High's brain. He glared at Buffy. "Shouldn't it be _Mr._ Giles to you, Summers? Unless, of course, there's something _other_ than a professional teacher-student relationship going on here." Snyder's tone was menacing, an implied threat that didn't need to be translated.

Giles' face was an interesting picture as it attempted to blush and pale at the same time as Snyder's implication got through to him. "Good god man, what are you thinking?! Of course there isn't! I would never do something like that!"

"Of course not." Snyder being patronizing was almost worse than regular Snyder. "But it would be understood if the school board didn't know you like I do. After all, she does spend more time in here than some would consider…reasonable for someone of her age and disposition." Another semi-veiled threat from Snyder. "So just be careful, Mr. Giles. Spending too much time with a hoodlum like Ms. Summers can get one into trouble." Finished giving his 'sage advice', Snyder turned and left the library.

He was barely out of earshot when Giles exploded in one of his rare fits of anger. "That moronic, odious troll of a man!" The Watcher roared. "How dare he accuse me of such things!" Taking a deep breath, Giles attempted to regain control of himself.

"Woah; calm down, Jekyll. Hyde is the last thing we need right now." Buffy admonished, taking a step back in case of a second outburst.

But all Giles did was take another deep breath, close his eyes for a few seconds, and breath out. If anyone could make him lose his temper, it was Snyder.

Opening his eyes, they locked on Buffy. "A literary reference? I'm impressed, Buffy. We may make a scholar out of you yet." Giles joked with his charge.

"Oh, please, god, no." Buffy pretended to pray aloud.

Giles gave her a smile. "Well, it can pay rather well."

Buffy nodded. "Yeah, except you have to spend it all on those itchy tweed suits." She gibed back.

Giles frowned. "This suit is actually rather comfortable." He defended.

"Sure." Buffy agreed sarcastically. "And I'm Little Red Riding Hood."

Giles turned back to the table. "Yes, well, statuses as a fictional character notwithstanding, you are still a Slayer, and as such we need to prepare to face Laralek. With, I might add, three fifths of our force missing."

Buffy nodded. "So, are we assuming they won't make it in time for the big demon bash?"

Giles nodded. "I suppose we should. Which means that we are going to need a slightly more involved plan than 'kill it.'"

Buffy shrugged. "Why? It worked all the other times."

Giles let out a long-suffering sigh in response.

Snyder glared at Xander, Willow, and James from behind his desk. "I think you all might like to know that I got a call from the mayor yesterday." He examined all of their faces, noting the reactions. "Do you know what he said?"

"That we all get to automatically graduate next year?"

"That you need to start serving Twinkies as part of the new lunch program?"

James and Xander, respectively, quipped at the same time. James noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that Xander was holding a fist out low in the space between their seats. Noting the grin on his face, James couldn't help but complete the fist bump.

"No." Snyder spoke severely, quietly seething at the flippant dismissal the two students had given him. "He told me that all three of you were to come to me to discuss your punishments. Guess what didn't happen." His austere glare killed the quips that had been born in James and Xanders' mouths.

Snyder stood up from his desk and began pacing around the room in a square. "I was told that I wasn't allowed to expel you; so I won't. However, in light of this recent disrespect shown to both me _and_ the mayor," he stopped behind them and leaned in close, his left hand on Willow's left shoulder, his right hand on Xander's right shoulder, and his head dipping between James and Willow's heads in the center. "I am going to make you _wish_ you'd been expelled. And I can do it, too." Snyder assured them as he straightened up. "I don't want to be in this building any more than you do, so come back to me Monday before school. And, if any _one_ of you isn't there, for _any_ reason," Snyder paused dramatically, taking the time to give each one his best soul-crushing principal glare. "_All three_ of you will be expelled, regardless of what the mayor says. Even at risk to my job, I will have…satisfaction. Understand?" The last word was spoken in a low tone that was even more threatening than the rest of the speech combined.

The three students simply nodded fervently and tried to avoid aggravating him more.

"Good. Now get out of my sight." Snyder commanded, his voice returning to his usual-imperious with a side of disgust whenever he saw a student.

"Yes sir." Xander couldn't resist giving Der Fuhrer a flippant salute as he closed the door behind him.

###

Buffy frowned as she paced around the back of the auditorium. No sign of Laralek, and while she was sure the monologues being performed onstage were riveting examples of their kind, she didn't exactly…what was the word? Oh yeah; _care._ She almost-_almost-_ wished the demon would start causing trouble already so she could kill it. But not quite; after all, this was Sunnydale, and who knows? Something might lurking, waiting to grant her wish in a horribly twisted way.

She doubted it, but hey; anything was possible on a Hellmouth.

She started when she felt a tapping on her shoulder; she spun around reflexively, pure silver dagger up and in stabbing position. The blade stopped barely an inch from James' chest.

"Woah! Hey there; I never liked kebabs!" James protested.

"Sorry. Just kind of wound up waiting for Laralek." Buffy looked around a little, and noticed something. "Where are Xander and Willow? You all went to talk to Snyder together."

James nodded. "Willow went back to get the weapons, and Snyder decided he didn't like Xander's attitude; they're still talking."

Buffy shook her head in annoyance. "Come on, Xander! Now is not the time!"

"Hey, not all the guys are out here; how about I go keep an eye on the dressing room, since you can't go there and the guys know me?" James suggested.

"Good plan. I'll stay out here and wait for something to happen." Buffy agreed with a little irritated impatience.

"Don't worry; if he shows up, you'll hear me screaming." James half-joked as he walked down the aisle of the auditorium.

It was barely ten minutes later when she heard crashing and screaming coming from backstage. Her head jerked up-just in time to hear her name being called out in James' voice.

Buffy bolted down the aisle and leaped onto the stage with barely a thought. Holding the dagger at the ready, she burst into the dressing room-to find another headless corpse lying on the table, and James on the ground against the wall to her right, clutching his side as blood soaked through his shirt. Seeing her, he pointed toward a door cross the room from where she was, and called to her, "He went through there, into the hallway!" His voice was full of pain and fear, galvanizing her into action.

She jumped over the wooden table in the center of the room, reaching for the doorknob as soon as she landed. She grabbed it and twisted, preparing to pull-but she didn't get the chance to open it. For as soon as she grabbed the knob, she felt a large, heavy, rough hand land on her shoulder as 'James' dropped the illusion, revealing a grinning Laralek, fresh blood coating his teeth. Before she could react, the hand gripped hard, and pulled back forcefully. Buffy was sent flying into the wall next to the door to the stage, keeping a strong grip on the dagger, but too stunned to do much else. Her hand feebly made for her pocket, where the earplugs were, but she felt one of Laralek's hands encircle her own, preventing it from making the distance. Laralek grabbed the hand holding the dagger just below the fist, raised her up, turned around, and slammed her onto the table in the center of the room. The force was too much for it, and the table snapped in half, leaving Buffy lying in the debris with a sharp shard of wood pushing into her back.

Laralek, still holding her hands, bent over her, meeting her eyes. He opened his mouth, and Buffy nearly gagged at the powerful scents of old and fresh blood mingling.

Then any thoughts of her own vanished when the demon began to speak in that indescribably transcendent voice of his.

"You will do exactly as I say. You will not try to harm me; you will help me to kill your friends who are, undoubtedly, rushing to meet you as we speak. Understood?"

Buffy could only nod as a shimmering mist clouded over her irises; she'd kill her own mother if Laralek asked in that beautiful voice, she knew.

###

The running, screaming, oddly dressed actors were probably the first clue that something was already going down, Xander realized as they emerged from Snyder's office into the hallway.

"What's going on?" James called out to one of the fleeing students, who slowed but didn't stop as he shouted, "Big freaky thing killed Adrian!" After that, he sped up again, and was gone in seconds.

"Alright; looks like it's go time. Let's gear up." Xander suggested with a half-smile.

The other two nodded determinedly, and made for the library.

###

Laralek loomed over the last remaining of the actors, the one who had foolishly stayed behind to ensure his friends go out. A deep chuckle emerged somewhere from within the demon's cavernous chest as he bent his head toward the boy, jaws extending like a snake to accommodate the size of his head.

Just before he could bite down, though, he felt a stinging pain in the center of his back. He emitted a truly monstrous roar and spun around. Hunched over, jaw still extended, clawed hands extended and ready to rip, he cut a truly terrifying figure.

Still, James shouted out as he reloaded, "Get your hands off my friends!"

Xander winced; he could hear the other teen even through the ear plugs. _Actors and their projecting, I guess._ "Hey, James; think we could have gone with a little less theatrical and a little more sneak attack?" Xander yelled, his own voice at sufficient volume to penetrate the protection of the ear plugs.

"Sorry, I'm an actor; theatrical is a requirement." He called back to Xander, bravado barely covering the powerful fear coursing through him.

Laralek shook his head, standing up tall. "It doesn't matter; it was no surprise anyhow." His head shifted not-so-subtly to the left of the door the four-Xander, James, Willow, and Giles, who they had met up with outside the auditorium, loaded for bear already- were standing in front of.

Frowning, Xander followed the demon's gaze-to see Buffy rushing at them, eyes clouded over with a shimmering white mist. "Oh sh-" was all he could get out before being launched into a row of seats by a Slayer-powered punch to the chest.

"Ow…" He muttered, waiting for a few seconds before the pain subsided enough for him to sit up.

What he saw was not encouraging.

Giles was making an understandably poor showing at fighting Buffy-not only was she the Slayer, but she was someone dear to the older man's heart, whom he didn't want to harm.

James and Willow were frantically playing keep-away by firing their crossbows at the demon heading out into the auditorium; one would shoot him, and he'd start after them, but a bolt from the other would-usually-pierce his scales, causing him to start chasing the other one. Lather, rinse, repeat. Of course, Willow and James were hardly expert marksman, and there were a few that went wide; however, Laralek was a rather large target, which probably helped.

Xander struggled to his feet, his breastbone still complaining. _I'd better help _someone_ out if I want to survive this. Well, someone non-demony, anyway. Or under said demon's control. _He took another quick survey of the battlefield. _Looks like Wills and the newbie have things covered for now; better see if I can find a way to help Giles, maybe snap the Buffster out of the whole hypnotism thing._ Taking a deep breath to steel himself, he hefted his crossbow and strode towards the battle between Slayer and Watcher.

Buffy was so concentrated on beating up Giles that she didn't hear Xander coming. Raising his crossbow over his head, he opted for a non-lethal blow, and brought the butt of the crossbow down on the back of her head, sending her staggering forward. Xander felt a little guilty about hitting Buffy at all, but then he figured, _eh, she'll forgive me later._ So, overall, he felt pretty good about being able to take the Slayer by surprise and land a blow-that is, of course, until she spun around to face him, dagger held at the ready.

"Not good!" Xander squeaked. He saw Buffy's arm begin to move, and he reflexively threw himself backward. _Not a second too soon_, Xander thought as he felt the stinging pain from the shallow cut the dagger had left across his chest. He landed on his back, he couldn't help but notice, in the perfect helpless-victim position for when Buffy would come over to eviscerate him. He caught her figure striding toward him relentlessly at the bottom of his range of vision. He hoisted himself onto his back hands and began scuttling down the aisle, away from the murderous Slayer. She kept coming after him, though, dagger raised.

Her stride was longer than his scuttling was fast, and she swiftly began to overtake him. She had just reached him when he clenched his teeth and thought, _Come on, Giles! I helped you; would it kill you to return the favor?!_ Even in the heat of the moment, he couldn't help but pun as he thought, _'Cause it'll sure as hell kill me!_

"Come on Buff, you don't want to do this; killing Xander is not a productive exercise. We're trying to slay the giant scaly thing, which, in case you forgot, _does not happen to be me_!" Xander frantically pleaded as he tried to escape his friend.

Buffy was preparing to stab down into him, and Xander was preparing for the faintly glowing white light that surrounded the dagger to be the last thing he saw, when suddenly, a light blue aura surrounded Buffy and she stopped short. Frowning, Xander could tell she was attempting to move forward, but no dice. He breathed a sigh of relief. _Thank god for stuffy Watchers that know magic._ Just then, the spell weakened, and Buffy jerked forward suddenly. With an incredibly manly high-pitched yelp, Xander lashed out with a reflexive kick. His foot slapped into Buffy's dagger-holding fist, and, surprised, her grip loosened as she was drawing it back, sending the silver dagger high into the air.

Xander tracked the gleaming, glowing blade as it flew over his head, twisting before coming down. He scrambled to the right, closer to the seats again, trying to avoid being impaled. He tucked his head in towards the first of the row of seats and closed his eyes, praying to whatever powers that were that he wasn't going to be killed by a combination of a murderous Buffy and his own efforts.

There was a distinct _thunk_ that rang clear in his ears. Opening his eyes, he saw the dagger sunk into the seat his head was resting near, stabbing through the cushion and into the black plastic below.

Xander took a moment to blink in surprise at his lack of dying, before scrambling to his feet. Glancing over at Buffy, adrenaline shot through him again as he saw the spell's aura noticeably fading. Thinking quickly-or maybe panicking, he wasn't entirely sure-he leaned down, gripped the dagger's hilt in his hand, and with a might yank, pulled it free. He spun back around just as the spell faded, holding the dagger blade toward Buffy, pretending that he knew what he was doing.

Then he realized what it was he _was_ doing, and gulped. He knew that even with a knife, he was infinitely less threatening than Buffy was; and that was the case even if he could bring himself to stab Buffy with it, which he seriously doubted.

Suddenly, his eyes did him the disservice of straying from the inevitable ass-kicking coming his way to lock onto Giles standing a ways behind Buffy. The older man was making short, sharp gestures, which was what had attracted Xander's attention. Giles was pushing down forcefully with a fist, then gesturing to the skin of his forearm and pretending to run whatever invisible object he held in his other hand over said forearm crosswise; when he'd done this, he would begin all over again, clearly trying to communicate a message. What was he doing with his fist at the beginning? It looked like he was slamming his fist down on something, like what you'd do if you were trying to hammer something in with your bare hand; or like what you'd do if you were trying to put more force behind a sharp object you were trying to push into something. _Wait, a sharp object? Oh, the dagger! He's telling me to use the dagger! To…cut myself on the arm? What does he want me to do with it? _Xander's train of thought was interrupted by a roundhouse kick that sent him tumbling into the next row of seats. He struggled to his feet, but Buffy vaulted over the row between them and slammed her feet into his chest, knocking him back down. His head hit the floor hard, and his vision blurred for a few seconds. When it cleared, Buffy was standing over his chest, one foot on either side. Before he could try to escape, Buffy quickly sank down to her knees and brought her hands around. Slowly lowering them, she grasped her friend around the throat, and began applying pressure.

Xander struggled against Buffy's Slayer-strong grip, to no avail. He brought his hands up, trying to push Buffy off, but had to take an extra second with his right hand so that he didn't stab Buffy between the ribs and hit something vital. He repositioned his hand and pushed, but that didn't have any effect either. His brain raced, trying to find ideas, plans, ways to save himself even as his lungs were burning and his vision was tunneling. Muscles weakening, his head tilted a little without his consent, and he found himself staring at Buffy's forearm. Inanely, it reminded him of Giles' message. He idly wondered what the Watcher had been trying to tell him to do with the dagger, but he didn't think he'd get the chance to figure it out. Buffy was choking him, slowly killing him, his mind was clouding, and his chest, oh god the cut on his chest hurt _so much_ as his heart was pumping furiously, forcing more blood to ooze out, the same blood that was on the tip of the dagger he now held, the dagger that had improbably cut him from a slash…

It was then that Xander's gut instinct picked up the pieces of the puzzle, jammed them together into a reasonable solution, and shoved his conscious minds' metaphorical face in the solution.

The revelation almost came too late; Xander was just about to black out, but knowing what Giles had been trying to tell him-not to mention a way to save his life-galvanized him, giving him just the few extra seconds of consciousness that he needed. As swiftly as he could, he brought the enchanted silver dagger up, under Buffy's arms and towards her side. Trying to balance between speed and carefulness-he still didn't want to full-on stab her, after all-he sank the tip of the dagger into Buffy's side. He felt like cheering-seconds before he blacked out from the lack of oxygen.

What Xander didn't see as his eyes closed, was a small fragment of the white glow that the ritual had put around the knife bleeding from the knife itself into Buffy's side. The fragment swiftly flew upwards, leading a glowing trail from Buffy's side to her chest. Just below her breasts, the glow split in two, separated, and continued upwards, one taking the left and the other the right. They traveled in sync up her neck, and to her temples. From her temples, they seemed to soak into her eyes, blowing the mist of Laralek's hypnotism apart, revealing Buffy's own hazel eyes, which sparked with the white glow for a second or two before it vanished completely from her being.

Buffy came to herself to find her hands locked around the throat of an unconscious Xander. Quickly, she removed her hands, recoiling at the thought that she might have just killed one of her closest friends. That particular fear was allayed as Xander's form took a welcome breath, and Buffy sighed in relief as she stood up. Stooping to gently wrest the silver dagger from Xander's hand, Buffy only paused long enough to fish in her pockets for her ear plugs, withdraw them, and put them into place before turning, vaulting over the row of seats, and running to confront Laralek.

###

James was backing away from Laralek, reloading frantically as he made his way through an aisle of seats. His plan was to reach the end of the row, and run around the auditorium to the front, so that Laralek would have to chase him all the way to the stage. Which, hopefully, would give James ample time to run away again, leading the demon in a never-ending chase. Or, well, until he got tired…

James hefted the crossbow, aimed, and fired in one smooth motion. Apparently _too_ smooth, as the bolt sailed over Laralek's right shoulder instead of piercing it. James was already reloading, trying to put another bolt in before the demon could reach him.

While the battle between Xander, Giles, and Buffy had been going on, Willow and James had been attempting to distract Laralek long enough for the others to figure out at least how to get the knife from Buffy. The strategy for surviving had been fairly simple; shoot at him. Whenever he started targeting one of them, the other would do their best to increase their fire rate while the first would slacken off a little, in the hopes that he would be in enough pain to go after the second one, who would likely be stationed across the room. That would give the first ample time to increase their own fire rate to take the heat off of the second one, and so the pattern would begin again.

It was a good plan, and it had worked-for a while. However, as much as they might wish it so, Laralek was not stupid. He had figured out the plan, and then started targeting one of the crossbowmen-well, man and woman, at any rate-exclusively.

Just his luck, the one he targeted happened to be James.

While James was reloading, Laralek reached low to his right, and gripped one of the auditorium's seats. With a sharp jerk upward and the groaning of metal under pressure, the seat was free of the screws and metal plate that had kept it moored to the floor. Laralek hauled back, and threw the seat at James. The newest demon fighter dove back in an attempt to get out of the way. He grunted in pain as he landed heavily on his right arm, but the seat hit the floor just in front of his foot with enough force that it bounced over him and landed, blocking the aisle.

Looking up, James noted the new obstruction to his plan.

"Uh oh." He muttered intelligently as he heard the roar of an angry demon from behind him. Rolling over onto his back, he saw Laralek approaching far too rapidly for his liking. The demon grinned maliciously as he loomed over the near-helpless teen.

"Where are your bold declarations and quips now?" The demon challenged, enjoying every second.

James did his best to look innocent. "Quip? Who, me? I don't quip; I think you're thinking of Buffy." He pointed behind Laralek.

The demon spun around, searching for the Slayer-who was nowhere to be seen. However, while he was looking, a stinging pain shot through his left knee. Looking down, he saw a crossbow bolt sticking out just above his kneecap. Looking up, he saw James scrambling past the seat that was blocking the aisle. The actor glanced back to see the demon glaring at him, black-and-yellow eyes full of hatred.

"If I was the quipping type, this is where I'd do it!" He shouted as he raced away, down toward the front of the auditorium. As he reached the stage, he turned to look at Willow, who was standing across the room from where he had just been. He caught her eye, and he made a questioning gesture. She held up her crossbow and pointed to her waistband. Spotting the small-ish bags where they were keeping their crossbow bolts, he suddenly understood-Willow was out of ammunition.

"Well, shit." He muttered as the demon's roar sounded again from his right. Turning, he saw Laralek wading through the sea of seating, not breaking his stride as his passage threw the seats out of their places, showering the aisles with screws, and bits of metal and plastic. He pointed one clawed finger at James, and shouted with a voice filled with pure anger, "You deceived me! You tricked _The Deceiver_! I shall have your head on a pike!"

Then, from behind the demon, a cocky voice rang out. "Isn't that a little old-fashioned?"

Spinning, The Deceiver saw The Slayer standing just up the center aisle from him. "Slayer. I will have your head like the others." He growled.

Buffy stayed smirking, stance confidant. "Sorry; couldn't hear you." She tapped her ear for emphasis.

The two pairs of eyes met, and for a second, the two gazes simply burned into each other; then, with a sudden battle cry, both fighters charged each other.

Laralek ran at the Slayer with no technique; his arms open wide to slash, punch, or grab as needed. Buffy sprinted at the demon, head bowed slightly, arms in close, making herself smaller, harder to hit. She ran with a purpose, dagger clenched in her right hand. As they drew closer, Laralek drew his arm back and swiped-at the space Buffy had just been. Buffy, however, had leapt at her opponent, simultaneously avoiding his attack and delivering one of her own as the dagger sank deep into the demon's shoulder with a hissing sound strongly reminiscent of a vampire doused in holy water. The demon brought both arms in for a bear hug, but Buffy had kicked off of the demon's larger, more solid body, landed with a back handspring, and kept her feet when she hit the ground again. She clenched her fists, ready to fight again-and felt something missing from her right hand.

"Oh no." She sighed as a glance confirmed her fears. The flying stab she'd managed had jarred her a little-enough to make her lose her grip on the dagger. So, when she'd made her stylish withdrawal, the dagger had been left behind.

The hissing sound continued for the next few seconds, until Laralek ripped the dagger out and tossed it behind him.

Buffy felt a tinge of fear, but managed to keep it hidden behind her usual bravado and quipping.

"You don't want your handicap? Fine then, but I'll have you know; I'm a black belt in ass-kickage." Buffy warned.

Laralek ignored her and repeated what he had done earlier against James. Reaching over to his side, he wrenched a seat out of the floor and threw it at her. Buffy prepared to leap to the side, but a streak of a vaguely familiar-looking light blue light flew overhead and slammed into the seat, killing its momentum and sending it crashing to the floor. Laralek's eyes focused behind on Buffy, and he growled out, "Watcher."

Making a mental note to thank Giles later, Buffy vaulted over the seat between her and Laralek and charged. As she got within range, the demon threw a punch, but Buffy slid below the blow and jumped to her feet behind him. Swiftly jumping into the air, she landed on his back and twined her legs around his torso to keep her locked in place. Leverage assured, Buffy drew back her fist and delivered a punishing blow to the back of Laralek's head, staggering him forward several steps. However, because her torso was straight up, she proved to be an easy target when Laralek reached back to grab her. Ripping her from his back, he threw her onto the floor, followed her down, and began raining blow after vicious blow onto her prone form.

###

James felt a mix of panic and anger as he watched Laralek beat Buffy into the ground. Raising his crossbow, he aimed down the sights, finger tensed on the trigger-and realized he didn't have a bolt loaded. Reaching down to his ammo pouch, his fingers grasped only air upon entering it. He cursed silently at his inability to help-when a glimmer caught his eye. It was down in the aisle, closer to him than to the titanic Slayer-demon clash, now that the conflict had moved several steps away. He peered closer to see the enchanted silver dagger glint up at him.

He moved toward the dagger, only to have his promise to Willow float through his head again. He'd promised not to get involved unless someone _really_ needed his help. Glancing up, he assessed Buffy's condition. As he watched, she caught one of the fists Laralek was hammering her with between her own hands, preventing it from slammed into her bloodied face. However, she lost her hold when his other fists caught her head, rocking it back into the floor.

_Okay,_ he thought, _I think that qualifies._ With that, he hopped off the stage and ran over to where the dagger was resting on the floor. Stooping to pick it up, a quote his head. It was from…well, he couldn't remember where it was from, but it didn't matter now.

Smiling to himself as he picked up the dagger and gazed into its' intricate design, he solemnly intoned, "As truth is my sword."

With a slight chuckle at his own whimsy, he turned to the battle and began to run, blood audibly rushing through his head thanks to the earplugs. As he reached the hunched over Laralek, he took a jump, leaping onto the demons' back, knife in hand. He wasn't aware of the fact that he was screaming out a war cry until his voice began to grow hoarse, His arm locked around Laralek's thick neck as well as it could, and he stabbed down with the dagger. The demon roared in pain and staggered in response, and a hand began grasping for James' form on his back. However, having learned from Buffy's example, he kept low to Laralek's back, making himself a smaller target. His thought process mostly vanished to adrenaline, his only plan was to keep stabbing. _I'm going to hit something vital eventually!_ He thought to himself as he pulled the dagger out of the demon's flesh and jabbed it back in again in a different spot.

As James began stabbing furiously, picking up speed, Laralek began thrashing and turning, trying anything to stop the immense pain. Laralek began picking up speed, even as James himself did.

Something had to give.

Buffy was still trying to regain her feet when Laralek suddenly spun, sending James whirling out from his body, only holding on by the dagger lodged in Laralek's back. The hissing sound of scalding flesh increased in volume as pressure pushed it closer to the flesh inside the wound.

Suddenly, Laralek turned the other way, so that James' body was now flying at his head. With surprising speed, he reached up and grabbed the teen, ripped him away from the dagger, and threw him down the aisle, to the base of the stage where his head hit with a loud crack. The force with which he'd ripped James away dislodged the dagger, sending it high in the air.

The demon, incensed nearly to the limit of coherent speech, began stalking down the aisle toward where James sat, dazed and confused due to his head wound.

"I am going to be glad to be done with you!" Laralek had growled before, but now his voice seemed positively animalistic.

He reached James swiftly, and grabbed the teen up and held him just before him. Then, he extended his neck just slightly toward James. "Dinner time." He muttered, and his jaws began to extend. James began to struggle feebly, but he was still out of it from the hit to the head.

###

Down the aisle, Buffy was struggling to her feet, still dazed but with her head clearing quickly. She glanced around and saw what was about to happen. She also saw that there was no way she could get there in time; Laralek's mouth could already encompass almost all of James' head. She felt a surge of fear for her new friend's life, and began looking around frantically. Her eyes locked on the dagger that had landed, blade down in the floor next to where she'd been laying. A desperate idea formulating, she whipped around to see Giles staring in horror at the tableau of Laralek and James. Catching his attention, she rapped out an order. "Giles! Do your mojo thing; I need a few seconds!" Spinning around, she held her hands out to her other conscious friend. "Wills! I need the crossbow!" Adrenaline ensured her voice was at a high enough volume that they could hear her even through the ear plugs. Giles' hands were already glowing an increasingly familiar light blue color when Willow called back, in a voice barely loud enough to be audible, "I don't have any more bolts though!"

Buffy shook her head. "Don't care; I need the crossbow!" Willow desperately hoped her friend had a plan to save James as she acquiesced, and tossed the crossbow to the Slayer.

Buffy caught the crossbow, and immediately stooped to wrest the dagger from its' resting place. In one relatively smooth motion, she loaded the dagger into the crossbow, aimed, and fired. She lowered the crossbow, eyes tracing the dagger's path, and acknowledged that that was the last chance to save her new friend. All she could do now was hope that she shot well.

The dagger was not a weapon designed to be fired from a crossbow; however, Buffy's Slayer instincts, aim, and training from Giles all came together, and the dagger flew straight and true. It flew down the aisle, toward the demon. For a brief second, as Buffy watched, it seemed like Laralek's form flickered…and then the dagger pierced the demon's brain and lodged halfway into his mouth.

The demon froze as the dagger pierced a vital organ; it teetered for a second, began to fall forward, and stretched out of a leg in an attempt to stay standing. It staggered back and forth for a second or two, then seemingly gave up, and fell backward collapsing. Its' arms fell wide and the hands relaxed, leaving James rolling out of the right fist for a foot or so. Then, the demons' body seemed to collapse in on itself, transforming into a green smoke, and was gone.

Silence fell across the auditorium for a few moments.

Buffy jumped as Giles cleared his throat. "May I suggest a visit to the hospital?"

###

The next morning, after all wounds and injuries were seen to, despite it being a Saturday, the five demon fighters convened in their normal meeting place; the school library.

The tally of injuries was impressive, but there was nothing permanent. Giles had several bruises and a slight shoulder fracture from fighting Buffy; Xander would be left with an impressive ring of bruises where Buffy had choked him, a severe black eye and bruised chest from where he'd been punched, and the shallow cut on his chest from Buffy wielding the dagger against him; James had collected a nice bump on the head from hitting the stage, cuts across his back and right shoulder from when Laralek had grabbed him, bruise on his right arm from when he'd landed on it, slight burns on the face from the mild acidic properties of Laralek's blood that had spilled on his face when the dagger pierced through the back of Laralek's mough(that had not been a fun discovery) and a possible case of trauma from almost having his head devoured. Buffy had had some serious injuries, but her Slayer healing had reduced them to bumps and bruises by the next morning.

Willow, the lucky one, had cut a finger on a crossbow bolt that had slipped from her grasp when Laralek was chasing her. That was all.

Xander, though glad that his childhood friend hadn't been hurt, thought that it was patently unfair.

The meeting began with a question from Buffy.

"So; what happened to you guys only being there as support?" She asked.

"We did say we'd be there to pull you out if it got too bad; which I think we can fairly say it did." Xander reminded her.

Willow nodded. "Yup! Especially with the whole hypnotized-Slayer thing."

Buffy conceded the point. "Fine; I needed the help. Thanks guys."

Willow nodded, smiling; but suddenly her smile turned into a frown, and she turned to James. "But you broke your promise!"

James looked at her, confused. "What?"

"Remember? If you're going to help us, you can't go running into fights like that! You agreed!" Willow reprimanded him.

James shook his head. "Didn't we just cover that Buffy _really _needed the help? 'Cause I remember that being the condition on whether or not I fight."

Willow frowned, but accepted the response.

"And speaking of promises…" James began. "When are we going to be putting that dagger back?" He asked pointedly.

Giles sighed. "You know, we really should keep the dagger. It may be useful in the future."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Against what? I mean, you don't approve of killing werewolves, and Laralek is dead."

Giles inclined his head. "Granted. However, this has not been the first time we have encountered a being that we had no indication existed before."

James nodded. "Then we can go grab it again when we need to. Or we can find a different one. I mean, don't you have a supplier or something that gave you all of these occult books?"

Giles nodded, defeated. "Very well; I will contact the Watcher's Council and ask them to send one. We can replace the dagger tomorrow. Although there may be some suspicion as to the cause of the glow around the blade."

James nodded triumphantly. "Thank you."

"Yes, well, good job everyone. Defeating Laralek was no easy feat. I am inclined to say that we were incredibly lucky." Giles congratulated.

Xander shot Giles an incredulous look. "Lucky?! Since when are we lucky?"

Giles gave a small, almost embarrassed shrug. "Ah, well, while you all were in school, I, as I said, was researching Laralek. And, it seems, that Laralek was the, ah, cousin would be the best translation, of one of our late foes."

Willow looked curious. "Really? Who?"

Giles looked at Willow meaningfully. "Moloch the Corruptor."

A surprised silence was all that escaped from the experienced Scoobies. James, however, interrupted, glancing at the more experienced demon hunters' shocked expressions. "Okay, can I get case files from you guys or something? Because I have no idea who that is."

"Moloch the Corruptor was a powerful demon who would lure people into his thrall with promises of love and power. And, according to my books, Moloch was the, um…gentler, of the two. And the less clever, but we have some cause to doubt that, due to the rather simple and brutal nature of our final encounter with him." Giles expounded.

"Well, the trap he laid for me was pretty clever. He pretended to be James, and lured me into the dressing room. Then he whammied me with his hypnotic voice, and…well, you know the rest." Buffy commented.

"Ah, yes, well, that is true." Giles conceded. "But let us not dwell on that; Laralek is dead, we are not. I believe we should take this opportunity to rest for the day." Giles noticed the relieved smile spreading across the faces of the three more experience Scoobies, and continued. "However, the opportunity to rest during the day does not excuse you from patrol at night."

A chorus of resigned moans and groans emanated from the demon-fighters as the gang all stood up and made their way out the door, into the light of a peaceful Saturday morning.

###

"Hey, James!"

The teen in question slowed his stride, half-turning to see Buffy jogging up to him.

"Hey Buffy. What's up?" He greeted.

"So, Willow told me you're planning on sticking around for a bit. Fighting the Good Fight and all that." Buffy broached as she slowed her own pace to match his. There was a little bit of a question in her tone.

James shrugged. "Probably. I mean, it's good work and all, and I was really gung-ho about it coming off of the whole heist thing-which probably says I should look into counseling, considering-but I have to think about some things first. You know, nearly getting your head bitten off kind of makes you re-evaluate your priorities."

Buffy nodded understandingly. "What kinds of things bear thinking about?" She queried, curious.

James shrugged. "Well, my dad for one. I mean, if I died, then I'm not sure what would happen. On the other hand, if I don't help you guys, I might not be able to take care of him."

Buffy nodded. "Family. I get that. Not that I ever really had a choice about the whole fighting-evil thing, but I can understand wanting to protect them."

James nodded. "And I kind of want to get some answers before I commit." He continued.

"Why don't we go find Giles? I mean, he can answer just about any question you have about any of this stuff." Buffy suggested, but James shook his head.

"That would work…if I was talking about a question about the supernatural. Or mystical, or whatever you want to call it." He gave a small smile at having caught her in an assumption.

"Oh." Buffy realized her mistake.

"But the odds are looking good." James told her as he began to pull away. "So I'll let you know my decision pretty soon either way. Assuming, you know, I don't get eaten by a vampire or something on the way to tell you. That would suck and be irritatingly ironic at the same time." He flashed a genuine smile and a wave at her as he walked away.


	7. Epilogue

_Don't own Buffy._

_Reviews would still be nice; and yes, I'm also talking to the people who only start reading this story long after it's finished. I'd still like to hear your opinions. _

_Also note; there is some heavy evidence that this epilogue is setting up for a larger story, or a "season" of Buffy fanfics. This is entirely possible. In fact, that is the plan. However, I would very much like to hear what all of you think about the idea. Yet another reason to review! _

_ ###_

A humanoid shape scampered through the night shadows. It was late for a very important date, and this was one boss you did _not _piss off. _At all._

The figure slowed as it reached the bus station, glancing around cautiously. It saw not a single being, soul or otherwise.

Good. It could pretend to not have been late.

Taking an exploratory step forward, the figure was thrown into relief by the illumination of a streetlight, and appeared human. However, judging by the speed and assurance with which it traveled, any observers in the know would have been quick to conclude that this was a vampire. A speed and grace that could only be supernatural, given the leg wound it had received earlier from one Vampire Slayer at the local art gallery.

This vampire was named Horatio.

Horatio padded forward slightly, expectantly. He was lucky his boss was late, but he couldn't expect that to last very long.

Just as he was thinking this, a bus quietly slid into the station and stopped. Not many humans would notice the very faint purple aura the bus had suddenly acquired, but Horatio knew what it was.

His boss was working magic again.

The door to the bus hissed open, and a tall, thin figure, dressed in an old-fashioned cloak, descended the steps, accompanied by the stench that can only come from several dead corpses and old blood.

Horatio bowed low. "El Reclusa Sangre." He uttered in deference.

The cloaked figure tilted its' head in acknowledgement. "Horatio." It greeted, voice warm and regal as any monarch of old.

Horatio, stilled bowed, extended an arm, hand flat with the palm facing skyward, and raised it to his master.

El Reclusa Sangre looked down at the offering in his lackeys' palm, and a smile split the hidden face. "Very good, Horatio. But then, you always have been the most successful of my servants. Were there any difficulties?"

Horatio cleared his throat to speak, but El Reclusa interrupted.

"Oh; and you may stand, of course."

Horatio did as his boss 'suggested' with haste. One did not ignore El Reclusa Sangre, no matter how pleasant he seemed to his underlings.

"Well, sir, there was a small difficulty in retrieving it. It was in an art gallery, and when I broke in to steal it last night, the Slayer was there."

His boss raised an eyebrow. "The Slayer?"

"Yes, sir. And this one is unusual; she has friends, sir." Horatio added.

"A Slayer with friends? That was hardly on the brochure." El Reclusa mused, stroking his chin with a hand gloved in soft leather.

"Agreed, sir. We fought, and Esteban was dusted; however, I managed to keep my hold, and retreated when the gallery's alarms sounded."

"You fought the Slayer, and yet live? Good job, Horatio!" El Reclusa congratulated his minion. Then he gave a 'come here' gesture with two fingers of his right hand, and the same purplish aura that had surrounded the bus glowed in Horatio's hand, and a small object floated off of the minions' outstretched palm. El Reclusa Sangre reached out and grabbed it, holding it up in the light for examination.

It was an intricately designed golden ring, with an inscription in a language Horatio didn't recognize decorating the outside. He was no expert, but judging from the weight of the ring, it was genuine gold. Not to mention that one didn't get to be the lackey of a powerful sorcerer for three hundred years without getting to be able to recognize magic when it was close by, and that ring had been steeped in it.

"Um, sir…I don't mean to be presumptuous, but… I have yet to feed, as I was too busy recovering the ring for you, and…." Horatio spoke up hesitantly.

El Reclusa Sangre smiled down at his oldest and favored minion. "Of course, Horatio. You must know by now that I reward successes." The vampire master waved toward the bus he had arrived on. "Help yourself."

Horatio thanks his master and eagerly climbed on board, having some idea of what awaited him.

His preconceptions didn't do the reality justice. The bodies of the many bus passengers were everywhere, fitting his masters' particular style. The driver of the bus was slumped against the steering wheel, his limbs having somehow been pretzeled around it in a figure no human's limbs were meant to make. One older, heavy man was staring blankly ahead, body curled up in the fetal position, clenched tighter than a human body could safely go. Horatio recognized one of his masters' favorite techniques-hypnotizing a victim into believing that they were undergoing tortures that a human body was physically unable to withstand without dying. However, given the nature of magic (and the mind, to some extent) the victim would last much longer than they would be able to if they were actually experiencing the physical tortures.

Horatio glanced down the row a little farther to see a delightful-to a sadistic vampire-tableau. A woman and what Horatio figured was her boyfriend/lover/husband-he really didn't care enough to search for a ring- had been holding hands when Reclusa had arrived on the bus. He could tell because Reclusa, in his eternal love for irony, had decided to pin both of their hands together with a dagger that had also been sunk into the bus seat. Just for added pain, Horatio could see that the rest of their major limbs had also been pinned to the seats-but never in a spot that could allow them to bleed out too quickly.

These were just a few of a score of victims that El Reclusa Sangre had left, in his usual style; physically or psychologically tortured unto death.

Horatio started in on the closest one; the driver, whose neck was bared and open for business.

That was the upside of working for a vampire like El Reclusa Sangre, Horatio thought as he drained the body. He left plenty of blood behind for his loyal followers, even if the bodies had gone cold already.

Outside the bus, the grin of the sorcerer, vampire and torture-master El Reclusa Sangre- The Blood Recluse- grew ever wider as he gazed at the antique magical ring he held in his hand.

He had just gotten to the Hellmouth, and yet his plans were already starting to look promising.

###

The door to the church opened quietly the next morning, and the rays of sunlight poured in as a head clothed in black hair poked through. Seeing no one, James McAnon slipped through the doorway, letting the solid oak door gently close behind him.

Moving quickly, as of someone who has entered a house uninvited, he takes a pew near the front of the church, and closes his eyes. Not entirely sure what he was doing, other than following his instinct and what just…_felt right_, he put his hands together in the classic prayer position of supplication, and readied himself to speak.

Just as he was about to, a kind, elderly yet strong voice broke into his thoughts. "Hello there, son. Can I help you?"

James opened his eyes to see an older man, but one who had aged gracefully. He had a strong face, framed with soft, iron-grey hair. His mouth was bracketed by laugh lines, and his eyes held a wisdom and kindness that James had never seen before. He was dressed in a black dress shirt with a white collar, and black dress pants.

"You're a priest." James blinked in surprise.

The religious leader gave him a small smile. "Pastor, actually. Priests are Catholic, among other groups. We do not happen to be one of those." He corrected gently. "But what did you expect to find in a church?" The older man asked rhetorically. "What is it that brought you here?"

"Well…" James began, unsure of what to say. He knew that he shouldn't just tell the pastor that demons were running around town and that fighting one of them had inspired him to seek Gods' protection and guidance, but what could he say? Well, he was an actor, wasn't he? He could come up with something.

"Well, a friend of mine got pretty badly hurt, and I was really worried. The doctors are doing everything they can, but I still wanted to do something to help. So I thought I'd come here and prey for her recovery." James lied.

The pastor was watching his face closely, eyes narrowed. He was searching for something in the boy's eyes, in his facial features. After a moment he found it, but instead of relief his expression morphed into a half-frown.

"You have had an encounter with the shadows that plague this town." The pastor intoned solemnly.

James did a double-take. "Wait, what?" He asked disbelievingly.

"The evil that inhabits this town; you've seen it face to face." The pastor spoke. It was not a question, or even a guess. It was almost like…the pastor was informing him, as if he hadn't already known.

"Umm…yeah. Some friends and I…we fought a demon." James responded, confused as to how this older man already knew about demons.

The pastor's face relaxed visibly. "Is that what brought you here?" He asked.

James shrugged. "Well, I think it's related…but no, not really." Knowing that that wasn't a very good answer, he decided to clarify. "You see, a few nights ago, after I had my first…encounter, I guess you would say, I had this really weird dream. I saw things happening-friends of mine doing these things, and then I saw myself doing some of them too! And it was weird, and I forgot about it until last night. But then…well, I found myself doing something that I saw myself doing in the dream. I didn't even realize it until later, and I can't remember anything else the dream showed me doing, but…well, I guess I just needed an answer, and where better than the house of the All-Knowing for that?" James asked rhetorically.

The pastor nodded his head a few times understandingly before he spoke again. "Son, I believe you've been Called."

"What?" James asked. The only one who was Called that he knew of was Buffy.

"Called by God. To do the work you saw yourself doing." The pastor clarified.

"So, wait; you think God wants me to fight monsters?" James asked incredulously. Then, he thought about it for a few seconds, and nodded. "I guess that makes sense. I mean, why else would I have bumped into Willow then, anyway? Or would Willow have met up with me in the auditorium?" He turned away from his thoughts and back to the pastor. "Umm…what's your name, Pastor?"

The older man smiled. "I'm Pastor Fairhill, my son."

James nodded at him, a full smile on his lips. "Thanks, Father; I think you're right about that dream."

Pastor Fairhill gave another gentle smile. "Father is a Catholic title."

James nodded. "I know, but somehow, calling you Father just seems right to me." He stood up and stepped out of the pew. "Thanks again, Father; I think you gave me that answer I needed!" He hurried out of the church, a smile on his lips now that he knew what his answer for Buffy was.

###

Scarcely half an hour later, Buffy blinked her eyes again, trying to stay awake. Not sleeping soundly last night, combined with waking up early this morning, did not bode well for her ability to stay awake. On the upside, it was a weekend, and Buffy was seeing something in the vein of a mid-day nap in her near future.

Her hand was absently stirring a bowl of breakfast cereal as she simply sat, staring into space.

She was _really_ tired.

"I just don't understand it." The voice made Buffy jump and twist around in her chair, Slayer instincts in full swing.

Until she realized that it was her mom who had spoken, anyway.

"What's wrong, mom?" Buffy inquired.

"There were two thefts from the art gallery Thursday night. Of all the old and valuable pieces there, the thieves chose a_ dagger_ and an old _ring._ Why would they take those things? They weren't even the most valuable!" Joyce wondered, frustrated.

Buffy shrugged. "Maybe because both things are small, so they could hide them better?" She suggested.

Joyce thought about it for a few seconds. "Well, I guess that would make sense…" She trailed off uncertainly.

Buffy's sleep-slowed mind jumped a thought over to her mouth. "A ring was stolen?"

Joyce nodded. "Yeah. An engraved gold ring; I think it was found somewhere near the Middle East. Why?"

"I just thought it was weird. I mean, a dagger is at least pretty cool; why would they want a ring?" Buffy made up on the spot. _So that's what that vampire stole from the gallery. I better let Giles know ASAP._

Just then, there was a loud knocking on the door. Joyce stood up to get it while Buffy finally took a bite of her now-soggy cereal. She could hear two voices-her mom and a rather familiar one-floating from the front door. She felt mildly puzzled as her mom called out, telling her that it was for her, but she swallowed her bite of cereal and went to investigate.

She looked through the doorway to see James standing there, face flushed, breathing more heavily than normal, but with a joyous spark in his eye.

James conspicuously looked past her, watching her mothers' retreating form, only turning back to Buffy herself when Joyce was out of sight.

A grin spread across his face as he looked her in the eye.

"Buffy, I just ran over to tell you: I have my answer." He told her breathlessly.

Buffy's brain was too tired to recall the question, and it showed in her expression.

James would not be discouraged.

"For the demon-and-vampire slaying? I just thought I'd let you know; I'm in!" He said, smiling brightly.

###

"Um, mister Mayor? I have a report for you."

Wilkins smiled as his aide entered the office. "Really? Well, this oughta brighten my day. What's it about, Finch?"

The aide shuffled nervously for a few seconds before replying.  
"Well, sir, do you remember those kids you had one of our men trail?"

Wilkins nodded. "Sure I do. Alexander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, and James McAnon. What'd our boy come up with?"

"Well, late yesterday evening, those three kids engaged and helped kill a higher-level demon, sir."

Wilkins' screwed up his face. "It wasn't one of the tribute demons, was it?"

Finch shook his head. "No, sir. It wasn't _that_ high of a level; it was Laralek the Deceiver."

Wilkins nodded. "Well, good for them. I never liked him. I don't appreciate it when people lie to me. It's just…rude."

"There's more to it than that, Mister Mayor." Finch notified him.

Wilkins sat back with a pleasantly puzzled expression on his face and gestured for Finch to continue.

"Well, it would appear that they have a friend-Buffy Summers-who, according to our guy, shows signs of being a Slayer."

"Hmm." Wilkins pondered the implications. "Well, that might cause problems. We can't have someone running around and killing too many demons in this town; it might interfere with the preparations for next year."

"Do you want us to kill them, sir?" Finch asked.

Wilkins shook his head. "No, I don't think so; at least, not yet. They should be able to keep the rougher guys from getting too out of control until I don't need them anymore." The mayor decided. "Just keep a tail on them, watch what they do. If they start causing too much trouble, then we can kill them."

"Alright sir; I'll let our guys know." Finch bowed his head in deference, and left the room.

###

In the depths of the earth, deep under the town of Sunnydale, there was a chamber. It had once been a church of sorts, as well as the prison for the vampire most simply called The Master for a number of years. The chamber had not seen any activity for months, not since its prisoner left.

But now, there was a new being dwelling in it.

The true Laralek the Deceiver sat, hunched over, in the center of the room, thinking. He was well aware that if he had not replaced his form with an illusion and slipped away, he likely would be dead right now. As it was, he'd have to lie low for a while to avoid catching their attention.

He chuckled as he thought of how his cousin had believed the ability to create an illusion of touch was useless; yet if not for that ability, he would never have been able to successfully trick the Slayer and her friends.

At the thought of his recent foes, his expression grew dark. He didn't like being bested; and that worm had managed to deceive _Him!_ With such a simple ploy, the boy had managed to trick The Deceiver!

Laralek sat back, stewing in his anger, and began to plot.


End file.
